Giro d'Italia Giro D'italia 2025 Stage 16: Piazzola sul Brenta – San Valentino

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Was it a rather big cleaning closet, or did you sleep standing up, strapped to the bed?

Improvised bed made of brooms and vacuum cleaner bags is my bet!

 

[Divergence]

Thomas Voeckler led the Tour de France after the Col du Galibier stage in 2011. Isaac del Toro is a far better climber than TV Tommy ever was.

I really hope we are on for a Tour de France 2011 kind of scenario, because for all my slating of the race for being a really good one week race masquerading as a three week race where the first couple of weeks had served to give us nothing but crashes and a TTT to break up the field, at least unlike, say, the 2012 Giro, it did actually catch fire when the ridiculously-backloaded route finally reached the denouement and despite two weeks of very disappointing inaction, most of those last few stages were genuinely great. Sunday's stage showcased a péloton that was keen to race but the effectiveness of their racing was neutered by the course, today the organisers gave them better tools to work with, and they delivered. You had all the archetypes as well, with guys like Storer and Bernal doing salvage jobs after looking like they were suffering earlier, and then picking their way through the guys who'd looked great and then fallen away; you had riders going too deep to hold on at the front, going into the red and then hitting the wall, you had surprising names being among the strongest (GC Gee is a bit of a thing but it's more because I think like with O'Connor's original 4th place in hte Tour, the fact they've been allowed to gain time by not being marked means other riders, let alone the fans, had rather underestimated them) and, with Ayuso, you had a proper old-fashioned GC pajará compounded by the fact that UAE's DSes haven't really had to tax the old grey matter for a while with guys like Pogačar in the squad so now having to manage workloads and balance off riders when they aren't the strongest is proving a bit of a challenge for them - all while Astana treat the mountains like 2008 CSF-Navigare up front.

All too often at the Giro in recent years things have been way too cagey all the way to the line, we should celebrate getting stages like this when they happen, they've been all too rare in the Corsa Rosa in recent years.

The difference is that Voeckler gained his advantage by being allowed in the breakaway. IDT mostly by not crashing when everybody else did.

 

[KZD]

Great racing today.

Astana with a fantastic 1-2 and KOM is theirs.

Pellizzari with an absolutely insane performance today, too bad he had to work for Roglič earlier in the race. Carapaz also looked very strong, with Del Toro cracking he has to be the favourite for the race now. Gee with a really good performance too.

UAE looking really bad overall, the race is completely open.

 

[jsem94]

Just caught up on the race after a long work day, and what a cracker. We all love seeing the super team imploding like this. What the hell was Ayuso thinking?

 

[Mako]

Feels like some here are overestimating Pelizzari a bit here. He wasn't always there in the early weeks and today definitely was a stage design suited to him. Don't get me wrong - he's good. But I don't think he could have made a too strong GC impact this Giro riding for himself. That still is a different beast, as IDT found out today

 

[staubsauger]

Feels like some here are overestimating Pelizzari a bit here. He wasn't always there in the early weeks and today definitely was a stage design suited to him. Don't get me wrong - he's good. But I don't think he could have made a too strong GC impact this Giro riding for himself. That still is a different beast, as IDT found out today

Agree!

Pellizzari could have been in the breakaway today and on Friday/Saturday giving him 2 stage wins.

That's just incompetence from Red Bull and there needs to happen something on the sports directors level IMHO!

 

[theyoungest]

Just caught up on the race after a long work day, and what a cracker. We all love seeing the super team imploding like this. What the hell was Ayuso thinking?

Probably "I have pain in my legs". Or do you mean when he was at the team car and had to close a minute gap? That was rather stupid.

UAE have managed to go from "how the hell is anyone going to beat these guys", to "how the hell are they still going to win this race"... all within one stage. And Gianetti still calls it a good day for them! Maybe he'll change the race result afterwards on Wikipedia.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Crazy. UAE still in yellow.

No, they're not.

 

[armchairclimber]

Worth noting that Del Toro and Pellizzari were more or less equals at Avenir.

 

[hayneplane]

Worth noting that Del Toro and Pellizzari were more or less equals at Avenir.

Yeah but key difference was that Del Toro was practically a 1 man team there whilst Italy had both Pellizzari and Piganzoli finish on the podium in that race.

 

[Gratemans]

W il Giro!
Sure, when you watched the parcours beforehand, there are enough reasons to complain. But the riders did manage to make it entertaining. Yes, also week 1 (and I admit, to a lesser extent week 2) were fun to watch in my opinion.

But today.. Ah nothing beats that exhilarating feeling when there's so much action all over the place it gets hard to follow.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Worth noting that Del Toro and Pellizzari were more or less equals at Avenir.

Well, Del Toro won with 1:13 and Pellizzari gained 1:10 in the TTT. Pellizzari lost 41 seconds on a hilly stage, but still entered the mountains with half a minute lead. Del Toro then dropped him big time on Col de la Loze and beat him comfortably in the mountain TT, before they finished the last two mountain stages together. From my memory it was clear that Del Toro was the stronger of them.

 

[TastyGroceries]

Well, Del Toro won with 1:13 and Pellizzari gained 1:10 in the TTT. Pellizzari lost 41 seconds on a hilly stage, but still entered the mountains with half a minute lead. Del Toro then dropped him big time on Col de la Loze and beat him comfortably in the mountain TT, before they finished the last two mountain stages together. From my memory it was clear that Del Toro was the stronger of them.

And to that I'd add that Pellizzari was already with Bardiani there while Del Toro was still in his small mexican conti team, so Pellizzari had access to an overall more professional environment (Even more in the case of Riccitello who was the favorite for winning the whole race back then) which made Del Toro performance back then even more impressive.

 

[dazaau]

It's a sunny day outside. Anyone who wasn't at work and was sitting watching the Giro on TV for whatever their reasons (or were sneakily watching it at work) are cycling fans. No matter their reasons, whether it's out of broader interest or because they support a particular rider. Hell, people who hate-watch just to see someone they don't like lose are also arguably fans in their own sort of way.

It's sport. There's no added virtue for watching it from a position of self-awarded grandiosity.

That's weird, for me It was 1:30am, dark, rainy and cold. What else is on tv 😉

 

[Tonton]

Just caught up on the race after a long work day, and what a cracker. We all love seeing the super team imploding like this. What the hell was Ayuso thinking?

Ayuso was thinking: "damn, the collapse after a rest day is for real"...

Throwing stages like these on stage 10 and 16 is unorthodox: "the collapse after a rest day") is well documented, Juan Ayuso is on the list now...in '17, Nibali took 2+ minutes in a Poopgate moment. Collapses take many shapes...

 

[Rackham]

Any news on whether Ayuso got a time penalty for drafting behind the team car on the climb? I know he lost nearly 15 minutes yesterday but for the sheer sake of consistency the rules should be applied equally between races no matter where the rider sits in GC.

 

[dazaau]

Any news on whether Ayuso got a time penalty for drafting behind the team car on the climb? I know he lost nearly 15 minutes yesterday but for the sheer sake of consistency the rules should be applied equally between races no matter where the rider sits in GC.

I think no. I found only this

Stage 16​

Team Soigneurs John Evans (EF Education-EasyPost) & Ignacio Rubio (Groupama-FDJ): Non-compliance during feeding. Yellow card and 200CHF fine.
Mechanics Michael Mainguenaud (Cofidis) and Edgar Coso Ferrer (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team): Leaning out of a vehicle and irregular assistance of a rider. Yellow card and 500CHF fine.
DS Gorka Guerricagotia (Cofidis) and Kurt Bogaerts (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team): Mechanic leaning out of a vehicle and irregular assistance of a rider. Yellow card and 1000CHF fine.

 

[search]

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Del Toro in pink, a guy with a water can on the head, 3 fans yelling their lungs out and a clown with a phone.

 

[search]

I didn't even realize Roglic went down again yesterday, but he was in the same crash as Carapaz. It's briefly caught by the on-board cameras, ~30s into this video

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wTocxh1a_w

 

[Red Rick]

Any news on whether Ayuso got a time penalty for drafting behind the team car on the climb? I know he lost nearly 15 minutes yesterday but for the sheer sake of consistency the rules should be applied equally between races no matter where the rider sits in GC.

Course not. But i was told I was whining about 30 times back when.

 

[Red Rick]

Okay rewatching I don't think the Giro looks that open. Carapaz is quite clearly the strongest of the contenders, and the only one to rival his level yesterday was Pellizzari who is 4 minutes down. He quite clearly spent nearly all his matches on the steep section, which is why Pellizzari could take 15s in the end after a short bout of relative recovery

Simon Yates completely *** up tactically just randomly pacing that group for no reason, especially when that leads directly to not being able to follow the Derek Gee counter attack.

Gee being a minute down and getting dropped frankly I think he's not quite strong enough to be much of a threat, also because I'm not even sure if he has teammates in the race.

Del Toro just blows up because he hangs on for too long, so he basically did his very best Ben O'Connor impersonation.

 

[tobydawq]

Okay rewatching I don't think the Giro looks that open. Carapaz is quite clearly the strongest of the contenders, and the only one to rival his level yesterday was Pellizzari who is 4 minutes down. He quite clearly spent nearly all his matches on the steep section, which is why Pellizzari could take 15s in the end after a short bout of relative recovery

Simon Yates completely *** up tactically just randomly pacing that group for no reason, especially when that leads directly to not being able to follow the Derek Gee counter attack.

Gee being a minute down and getting dropped frankly I think he's not quite strong enough to be much of a threat, also because I'm not even sure if he has teammates in the race.

Del Toro just blows up because he hangs on for too long, so he basically did his very best Ben O'Connor impersonation.

Mhmm. 2024 Giro all over again.

 

[Rackham]

Gee finished 13 seconds down on Carapaz yesterday.

Let's speculate for the sake of potential entertainment here that Derek Gee cannot react to the explosiveness of Carapaz but can tempo his way back to him.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Gee finished 13 seconds down on Carapaz yesterday.

Let's speculate for the sake of potential entertainment here that Derek Gee cannot react to the explosiveness of Carapaz but can tempo his way back to him.

But he can‘t, he had 7 kilometers to do that yesterday. But of course, if Carapaz has a worse day he could.