Giro 2018 2nd Rest Day - Winner Poll

[GraftPunk]

I'm sticking with Pinot, but mainly because Tom's form looks rough and Yates (IMHO) might have peaked too early. Chaves is a head-scratcher though. In any event, it will be fun to see how things work out, after all it is the Giro and anything can --and probably will-- happen.

 

[Põhja Konn]

Picked Chaves, but its mostly on gut feeling, because the mountain stages thus far have been cagey and revealed very little. Though if Pinot has learned how to manages days after restday, it is his big chance at a GT win. In terms of recovery Pinot and Chaves should be the best of the favourites. MAL, Aru and Froome in their current shape are wildcards who cannot yet be completely counted out, but are increasingly likely to be non-factors.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

I voted Chaves but I think it's very close between him and Dumoulin. The hard mountain stages in the third week should suit Chaves very well and I think he might just win enough time on Dumoulin to take the win. I think that Yates will fade in the third week. Pozzovivo looks strong but I can't really envision him as a winner. Pinot looks decent as well, but the way he rides doesn't really look like someone Who really wants to win the whole thing. He hasn't really shown the guts like Chaves for instance.

 

[Oliwright]

I still think TD will win.
I think Froome will either finish 2nd or drop out.
I think SY will finish a close 3rd or 2nd.

Nibali looked worse than Froome at this stage in 2016 and went on to win. But I think this is a much tougher Giro.
Also, people picking Pinot over Yates or TD are crazy.
The only reliable thing with Pinot is that he'll disappoint. In the last 3.5 years, he's had 1 top 5 in a GT.

 

[LaFlorecita]

I still think TD will win.
I think Froome will either finish 2nd or drop out.
I think SY will finish a close 3rd or 2nd.

Nibali looked worse than Froome at this stage in 2016 and went on to win. But I think this is a much tougher Giro.
Also, people picking Pinot over Yates or TD are crazy.
The only reliable thing with Pinot is that he'll disappoint. In the last 3.5 years, he's had 1 top 5 in a GT.

Oh boy !

 

[Red Rick]

I still think TD will win.
I think Froome will either finish 2nd or drop out.
I think SY will finish a close 3rd or 2nd.

Nibali looked worse than Froome at this stage in 2016 and went on to win. But I think this is a much tougher Giro.
Also, people picking Pinot over Yates or TD are crazy.
The only reliable thing with Pinot is that he'll disappoint. In the last 3.5 years, he's had 1 top 5 in a GT.

Oh boy !

Pinot = Tour de France confirmed

 

[Gigs_98]

I still think TD will win.
I think Froome will either finish 2nd or drop out.
I think SY will finish a close 3rd or 2nd.

Nibali looked worse than Froome at this stage in 2016 and went on to win. But I think this is a much tougher Giro.
Also, people picking Pinot over Yates or TD are crazy.
The only reliable thing with Pinot is that he'll disappoint. In the last 3.5 years, he's had 1 top 5 in a GT.

Many people have looked worse than Froome at this stage of a gt, but in recent history only one of them made a comeback. For Nibali to do the impossible so many small factors had to play together perfectly and even if you put Nibali himself in the exact same situation again the chance that the outcome was the same too is minimal. If you want to make a Nibali comparison, the more reasonable one is in my opinion a comparison to the 2015 tour de france where Nibali was rubbish in the Pyrenees but rode himself into form and was the third strongest rider in the Alps. Maybe Froome can do that, although I honestly doubt it. After Etna I thought he was about to get better again but now that he was worse on Gran Sasso than three days earlier I have my doubts.

 

[Sestriere]

I still think TD will win.
I think Froome will either finish 2nd or drop out.
I think SY will finish a close 3rd or 2nd.

Nibali looked worse than Froome at this stage in 2016 and went on to win. But I think this is a much tougher Giro.
Also, people picking Pinot over Yates or TD are crazy.
The only reliable thing with Pinot is that he'll disappoint. In the last 3.5 years, he's had 1 top 5 in a GT.

Many people have looked worse than Froome at this stage of a gt, but in recent history only one of them made a comeback. For Nibali to do the impossible so many small factors had to play together perfectly and even if you put Nibali himself in the exact same situation again the chance that the outcome was the same too is minimal. If you want to make a Nibali comparison, the more reasonable one is in my opinion a comparison to the 2015 tour de france where Nibali was rubbish in the Pyrenees but rode himself into form and was the third strongest rider in the Alps. Maybe Froome can do that, although I honestly doubt it. After Etna I thought he was about to get better again but now that he was worse on Gran Sasso than three days earlier I have my doubts.

Nibali, however, showed good form on some stages before his outstanding comeback. He attacked on some of the medium mountain stages in week two (never made the difference, but looked allright). He was good on the big Dolomite stage, dropped only by Chaves and Kruiswijk after digging really deep to distance Valverde, kept the gap constant after that.
He basically had two catastrophic days: The MTT and Andalo, for Andalo you could make the case that he was working very hard in the valley to distance Chaves, so he probably looked worse than he really was.
The point I'm trying to make is that although Nibali's deficit was big, he didn't look terrible in every stage and you could still think that he wasn't that bad after all. Froome, however, has been on the backfoot basically the entire race (admittedly it's still very early, so we cannot really say as much about Froome's shape than we can do in hindsight about Nibali's in 2016).
Ultimately, Nibali had to overtake three riders ahead of the last weekend (Kruiswijk crashed, Valverde suffered at altitude, Chaves got tired), whereas for Froome to still succeed, 10 riders have to run into problems (while he has to improve significantly).

 

[ferryman]

Probably the first GT in years on which I have no idea who is likely to win a week in. Voted for Dumoulin just to vote (always important peeps) Froome has 4 days to recover and if he can get himself and team at 90%, I wouldn't rule him out just yet. Not convinced Yates is climbing better than Chavez but I guess Saturday will reveal all. Haig will likely have a big say if one of those boys are going to win. Pinot/Pozzo street fighters who won't lie down easily. MAL/Bilbao hopefully team up when Astana again go mental on Zoncolan. Hope Carapaz isn't too scared yet either to have another go (with Betancur of course). In conclusion, no idea but really really looking forward to the show

 

[Red Rick]

For me Froome and MAL are the only ones out of contention after the first week

 

[Squire]

Re:

For me Froome and MAL are the only ones out of contention after the first week

With all the mountains coming up (and potentially some rest day magic ) I wouldn't count anybody out yet. So far it has mainly been group rides to the top of the last climb. It doesn't mean much. A lot of people have faded from looking great the first week.

If anybody still has legs (and courage) by then, stage 20 can turn this race upside down.

 

[Valv.Piti]

It has been very hard group rides, yeah. Lots of relatively high tempo grinding, its taking its toil as well, but obviously very hard to make significant gaps.. but we all knew that going in looking at the route. It has been raced rather aggressively by Astana and MS - both teams have been going for stage wins, the at least the favourites have fighted for the stage wins on all the MTFs, pretty much. So that has been good and probably deceptively hard for everyone.

Won't discount Lopez or Froome either. Still completely open, 2 minutes is nothing with the 4-5 hard stages coming up.

 

[Escarabajo]

The only one that I would count out is Froome. And not because of the hard stages to come. I would count him out because he hasn't shown anything yet but fading. I doubt that he will come back under these circumstances.