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Giro d'Italia 2021 Race Thread - Enthusiastic Laymen Edition

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Who will win the Giro in case neither Yates nor Bernal does?


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  • Poll closed .
In my eyes these are the biggest guns for the win:

5 stars: Simon Yates
4 stars: Egan Bernal, Daniel Felipe Martínez
3 stars: Mikel Landa, Pello Bilbao, Aleksandr Vlasov
2 stars: Romain Bardet, Jai Hindley, Dan Martin, Emanuel Buchmann
1 star: Pavel Sivakov, Vincenzo Nibali, Joao Almeida, Hugh Carthy
Outsiders: Remco Evenepoel, Marc Soler, Domenico Pozzovivo, Giulio Ciccone, George Bennett, J.A. Cepeda
Why Martinez so high? Because of his strong team? I'd personally rank all of Sivakov, Carthy and Almeida higher than him and you gave them only one star.
 
In my eyes these are the biggest guns for the win:

:pizza::pizza::pizza::pizza::pizza:: Simon Yates
:pizza::pizza::pizza::pizza:: Egan Bernal, Daniel Felipe Martínez
:pizza::pizza::pizza:: Mikel Landa, Pello Bilbao, Aleksandr Vlasov
:pizza::pizza:: Romain Bardet, Jai Hindley, Dan Martin, Emanuel Buchmann
:pizza:: Pavel Sivakov, Vincenzo Nibali, Joao Almeida, Hugh Carthy
Outsiders: Remco Evenepoel, Marc Soler, Domenico Pozzovivo, Giulio Ciccone, George Bennett, J.A. Cepeda
Fixed!
 
Why Martinez so high? Because of his strong team? I'd personally rank all of Sivakov, Carthy and Almeida higher than him and you gave them only one star.

He's a good time trialer, in the Alps he maybe even looked better than Sivakov, so if Bernal's back is not okay he might end up being their first option. Spring could be a problem for him, but otherwise I think he's a really strong rider as long as he stays on his bike - which, I admit, he often has problems to. The sterrato stage could be among the problems for him...
 
In my eyes these are the biggest guns for the win:

5 stars: Simon Yates
4 stars: Egan Bernal, Daniel Felipe Martínez
3 stars: Mikel Landa, Pello Bilbao, Aleksandr Vlasov
2 stars: Romain Bardet, Jai Hindley, Dan Martin, Emanuel Buchmann
1 star: Pavel Sivakov, Vincenzo Nibali, Joao Almeida, Hugh Carthy
Outsiders: Remco Evenepoel, Marc Soler, Domenico Pozzovivo, Giulio Ciccone, George Bennett, J.A. Cepeda
Very harsh to say these guys are enthusiastic laymen.
 
The amount of trust Landa gets every year before a GT is one of life's biggest mistery to me. When will the hype die? He hasn't been on a GT podium in SIX years.

I understand the skepticism surrounding riders like Vlasov or even more Evenepoel. But at least with them you have no precise idea about what they could do in a GT. You can dream. Landa on the other hand is a known quantity. Why should things suddenly change in 2021? I don't get it.
 
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Bookies have three clear contenders: Bernal (avg. 9/4) with some advantage over Yates and Evenepoel (both about 7/2). The rest are way behind (10+).

https://www.oddschecker.com/cycling/giro-ditalia/giro-d-italia/winner
It's honestly insane that Evenepoel is still getting these kind of odds. Two years ago I would have told you there is no way anyone in the world can win a gt after that kind of preparation and suggesting a guy who has never ridden a gt in his career can would have sounded beyond ridiculous. But Evenepoel has done so many things so unnormal that not even the bookies are daring to bet against him.

All in all, looking at the field this does look like another race that could go to an outsider. These three big favorites all have huge question marks to them, with Evenepoels preparation, Bernals back and Simon Yates being himself. I didn't think I'd ever favor Yates for a gt again, but honestly, I can't come up with a better #1 favorite which in itself is shocking. As some have said, by now Landa is a well known quantity and nothing that has come after the original Landani hype in 2015 has suggested that he is actually as good as we all thought for about a month. All the jokes about QS pretending Almeida to be their leader aside, considering the rate riders usually improve at, at that age, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see someone like him in the fight for the win.
 
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The amount of trust Landa gets every year before a GT is one of life's biggest misery to me. When will the hype die? He hasn't been on a GT podium in SIX years.

I understand the skepticism surrounding riders like Vlasov or even more Evenepoel. But at least with them you have no precise idea about what they could do in a GT. You can dream. Landa on the other hand is a known quantity. Why should things suddenly change in 2021? I don't get it.

He has finished 4th on multiple occasions even in the strongest fields so he is obviously going to be considered one of the favourites especially since the Slovenians are not here. He often misses out on podiums due to ITT however there is very little ITT here and the only GC contenders who will put significant time into him in an ITT is Almeida who he will easily drop in the multi mountain stages and Evenepoel who is coming back from injury.
 
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All in all, looking at the field this does look like another race that could go to an outsider. These three big favorites all have huge question marks to them, with Evenepoels preparation, Bernals back and Simon Yates being himself. I didn't think I'd ever favor Yates for a gt again, but honestly, I can't come up with a better #1 favorite which in itself is shocking.

One of Stephens or Lloyd said during Tour of the Alps that Yates felt undertrained when they reached the mountains in 2019 and the theory was that the really flat route in the first half of the race caused him to lose condition which might explain his 2019 Giro inconsistency. This year's route does not risk the same happening.
 
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The amount of trust Landa gets every year before a GT is one of life's biggest misery to me. When will the hype die? He hasn't been on a GT podium in SIX years.

I understand the skepticism surrounding riders like Vlasov or even more Evenepoel. But at least with them you have no precise idea about what they could do in a GT. You can dream. Landa on the other hand is a known quantity. Why should things suddenly change in 2021? I don't get it.

Maybe because he was so good in his first races of the season on terrain on which he should not have been able to ride that well. He was the best of the rest in Tirreno and kept saying he was still not at top form.

At that point, I was ready to have him as my top favourite because Bernal's back was questionable, Yates is Yates and Remco was in doubt (and still is).

Then he didn't impress in Itzulia, so now I am again in doubt. And Yates looks in a different league. Remco can be as well. I am still not sure about Bernal (or Remco).

In conclusion, I think it's unreasonable to say that his ceiling is 4th. If those three (Yates, Remco and Bernal) do not perform, it's not like there will automatically be three other riders who will suddenly become better than Landa. The peloton is not a hydra.
 
Having Landa as at least podium contencer is totally justified. He was 4th in 2019 Giro behind Carapaz, Nibali and Roglic, mainly because of bad luck and ITT's (there is little of that in this Giro, and rivals are not great time trialists anyway). In 2020 Tour he wasn't really impressive but still ended up 4th behind Pog, Rog and Porte in great form. For me these results are enough to take him as serious contender, especially when his rival are Bernal with back problems and Yates, who isn't really a proven competitor in Grand Tours (at least for me). Actually I think that Landa was so overhyped that now he is slightly underrated.
 
Having Landa as at least podium contencer is totally justified. He was 4th in 2019 Giro behind Carapaz, Nibali and Roglic, mainly because of bad luck and ITT's (there is little of that in this Giro, and rivals are not great time trialists anyway). In 2020 Tour he wasn't really impressive but still ended up 4th behind Pog, Rog and Porte in great form. For me these results are enough to take him as serious contender
And he was 6th in the 2019 TDF, beaten by Buchmann among others.
He was 7th in the 2018 TDF, beaten by Bardet among others.
Both are riding the Giro. Bardet actually podiumed the Tour twice despite being a much worse TTer than Landa (and once almost losing his podium spot to Landa of all people in the final TT).
It's not like Landa didn't manage to get on a GT podium in six years because he was always up against a stacked field.

I don't see him as more likely to win than someone like Carthy, who actually podiumed the very last GT ridden, or Vlasov, who has an impressive track record in stage races and was quite unlucky in his GT starts last year.

And I never said 4th is his ceiling. He can win of course, as can at least a dozen rider. He's simply not a favorite.
 
And he was 6th in the 2019 TDF, beaten by Buchmann among others.
He was 7th in the 2018 TDF, beaten by Bardet among others.
Both are riding the Giro. Bardet actually podiumed the Tour twice despite being a much worse TTer than Landa (and once almost losing his podium spot to Landa of all people in the final TT).
It's not like Landa didn't manage to get on a GT podium in six years because he was always up against a stacked field.

I don't see him as more likely to win than someone like Carthy, who actually podiumed the very last GT ridden, or Vlasov, who has an impressive track record in stage races and was quite unlucky in his GT starts last year.

And I never said 4th is his ceiling. He can win of course, as can at least a dozen rider. He's simply not a favorite.

In the 2019 TDF he lost two minutes after Barguil punted him off the road in the crosswinds and 2018 was a bad year for Landa. Last year he finished 4th in the highest level TDF in years beaten only by riders not at the Giro.
 
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And he was 6th in the 2019 TDF, beaten by Buchmann among others.
He was 7th in the 2018 TDF, beaten by Bardet among others.
Both are riding the Giro. Bardet actually podiumed the Tour twice despite being a much worse TTer than Landa (and once almost losing his podium spot to Landa of all people in the final TT).
It's not like Landa didn't manage to get on a GT podium in six years because he was always up against a stacked field.

I don't see him as more likely to win than someone like Carthy, who actually podiumed the very last GT ridden, or Vlasov, who has an impressive track record in stage races and was quite unlucky in his GT starts last year.

And I never said 4th is his ceiling. He can win of course, as can at least a dozen rider. He's simply not a favorite.
Seriously?
He was 6th in 2019 Tour racing it after Giro, which is actually a great result. In 2018 TDF he crashed and had back problems but even if we ignore it, it's not the most recent result and I think that you know that Bardet is below Landa's level right now.
In case of Carthy, I think he's too fragile and inconsistent to be rated higher (he always seems to have weird bad days) but I actually agree that he is a great rider probably underappreciated. Vlasov for me is the most interesting rider in this Giro, I'm rooting for him and expect a great performence.
The thing is that in case something goes wrong for Bernal, Yates, Evenepoel Landa is the next guy and while someone like Vlasov may have a higher ceiling, we simply don't know that as he rode total of 0 GT for GC.
 
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Remco Evenepoel is going to surprise many people in the first week, baffle them in week two and be worshipped after week three.

Also anyone else has the feeling that the Giro has been growing more prestigious than the Tour in the last couple of years and is now finally the premier one? Will be a fine win for Baby Eddy.
 
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Remco Evenepoel is going to surprise many people in the first week, baffle them in week two and be worshipped after week three.

Also anyone else has the feeling that the Giro has been growing more prestigious than the Tour in the last couple of years and is now finally the premier one? Will be a fine win for Baby Eddy.
I'll be happy if he gets through it unscathed. Excited for more, but really just want him to get back to level he was at Lombardia, where I think he would have won convincingly.

Of course then we'd have heard how weak the field was but I digress...
 
Also anyone else has the feeling that the Giro has been growing more prestigious than the Tour in the last couple of years and is now finally the premier one? Will be a fine win for Baby Eddy.
I don't think that's the case. I do think Giro was gaining momentum, but last year was somewhat of a setback. The biggest difference is not so much in the top GC names, but in all the other type of riders. The domestiques are stronger in the Tour, the stage hunters, the classics riders, the sprinters' field is deeper, better TTers.

Not to mention the prestige, the popularity worldwide, the interest from casual fans, the coverage... all heavily in favor of the Tour. But Giro is doing better in the last decade than before.
 
I really hope that Remco recuperates and gets up to speed very quickly because I want to see him challenging the Slovenians in the near future. And that seems to be like a very good rivalry. But what people are expecting from him here at the Giro is really crazy.
I've read that no rider in XXI century came from a half-year break straight into a GT and won it.

And some people seem to think it's possible to do that on your first ever GT.

Well, I won't bet my entire money against that as I basically wouldn't against anythig else but it indeed does feel like a crazy expectation.
 
Also anyone else has the feeling that the Giro has been growing more prestigious than the Tour in the last couple of years and is now finally the premier one? Will be a fine win for Baby Eddy.
Not even close, actually Vuelta is closing the difference to Giro. Last year was terrible for Giro.
I've never seen a year with so many top GC talent declaring they're doing Vuelta so early. Not sure if it's the route but it's interesting that the Vuelta GC field actually looks stronger than the upcoming Giro one. Pogacar, Evenepoel in top form, Bernal, A.Yates, MAL, Valverde, Mas, Kuss, Kruijswijk etc And that's the field with so many months to come. This year Vuelta seems bigger than Giro, at least from the riders perspective. It's gonna have the first battle between the top3 young GC prospects.
 
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