Giro D'Italia Int'l Fem' 2012

[WindLessBreeze]

Vos!!!!!Usually the same girls win, it's more predictable than men's races. Teams skewed even more.......I know, everyone is into TdF now....& I ask: No Pictures ??????!!!!

 

[Andrichuk]

50 minutes of stage 1 in Italian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22g--a6TIDo&feature=plcp

 

[WindLessBreeze]

montani3semper

Primum^Vivere/Deinde*Philosophari.........TdF: TJ sub-25

 

[Izzy eviel]

There's lots of stuff about this race on http://www.podiumcafe.com they seem to be quite into this race.

Stage 3 was rather awesome, Vos spent most of the stage chasing the breakaway and just as she was about to join them, Evie Stevens attacked and Vos dropped like a stone.

 

[Morbius]

Why is the coverage of this race on CN so cr@p?

A one-line summary of each days action "Overnight leader Vos drops to second on GC" and not even the results?

 

[WindLessBreeze]

Stevens

Looks rather HOTTTTT...Well, my dear..CN is covering races in Austria, China, all the Gossip surrounding the USADA-Lance&Johan affair...Not even the best could cover everything all the time. But if you read, there seems to be folks who consider this race a VIP oneMcQuaid ternure is about to flunk

 

[Morbius]

Sure there's a lot going on, but this is the biggest women's cycling race of the year. Surely CN find someone to cut and paste the results and rehash a press release

 

[gustienordic]

Vos!!!!! & I ask: No Pictures ??????!!!!

They will be good

 

[TheEnoculator]

Why is the coverage of this race on CN so cr@p?

A one-line summary of each days action "Overnight leader Vos drops to second on GC" and not even the results?

I agree. I'm actually quite disappointed because CN seems to strongly support women's cycling. Even Velonation has a full article on each stage.

I hope Vos wins, and the Olympics, and the WC. She's on her way to become the Eddy Merckx in women's cycling, plus she's only 25.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Vos will come 2nd in the WC. It's what she does.

50 mins highlights of stage 3 here. Looks like a fun stage.

Today, however, Vos had her revenge, absolutely decimating the field on the way to Montecatini Alto. The stage featured a moderate puncheur/climber finish after one big climb:

Goraiolo (cat.2) 10,7km @ 6,3%
Montecatini Alto (no puntable) 3,2km @ 6,0%

Vos asserted her superiority and annihilated everybody to win by more than a minute, while from the splintered pack behind Emma Johansson was able to put time into the others on the final hill.

1 Marianne Vos (Rabobank) 2'44'59"
2 Emma Johansson (Hitec Products) +1'26"
3 Tatiana Guderzo (MCipollini-Giambenini) +1'33"
4 Evelyn Stevens (Specialized-Lululemon) +1'33"
5 Claudia Häusler (GreenEdge) +1'38"
6 Emma Pooley (AA Drink-Leontien.nl) +1'38"
7 Fabiana Luperini (Faren-Honda) +1'52"
8 Judith Arndt (GreenEdge) +1'52"
9 Ashleigh Moolman (Lotto-Belisol) +2'11"
10 Elisa Longo Borghini (Hitec Products) +2'11"

Interesting puncheur-style finish, in that more recognised climbers such as Claudia Häusler (winner of this race back in 2009 lest we forget) and Emma Pooley (who Plataforma Recorridos Ciclistas described as cycling's climber par excellence) found themselves losing out in the dying metres to riders like Johansson. Will be interesting to see how that one panned out.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Surprised a certain someone isn't bored by the dominance.

 

[WindLessBreeze]

What happened to Lizzy?!

She's already like 40 minutes behind, near sprinters Bronzini and Ina Yoko, and Chloe......Can anyone tell me if she had an accident or mechanical problem?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Surprised a certain someone isn't bored by the dominance.

It's a bit like the 2011 men's Giro. I get pretty bored of Vos' domination, but the fight behind her could be good. I'm rooting for Emma and Claudia on that front.

 

[TheEnoculator]

Surprised a certain someone isn't bored by the dominance.

Was cycling boring when Merckx dominated? When you dominate throughout your career, you become a legend for the rest of your life. What's wrong with that? I think Vos can reverse her fortune and beat Bronzini in WC, so long as she wins the Olympics to get her confidence back. She's been world champion before, she can do it again.

I'm also a fan of Giant bikes (I own two myself), so I'm not bored of Vos' dominance. I'd to see Giant win the Olympics and WC.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Was cycling boring when Merckx dominated? When you dominate throughout your career, you become a legend for the rest of your life. What's wrong with that? I think Vos can reverse her fortune and beat Bronzini in WC, so long as she wins the Olympics to get her confidence back. She's been world champion before, she can do it again.

I'm also a fan of Giant bikes (I own two myself), so I'm not bored of Vos' dominance. I'd to see Giant win the Olympics and WC.

Waterloo isn't complaining about the dominance. They're winding "a certain someone" (i.e. me) up about their tendency to get bored by dominance.

And the fact of the matter is, I do get bored by dominance. I found Schumacher dull, I found Armstrong dull, I found the New England Patriots dull, I find Barcelona dull. Sure, their successes are legendary, but when the same people win every time, it's easy to get bored of seeing the same outcome, and want something different.

I always vote Vos in 'best cyclist of the year', 'best cyclist in the world today' etc polls, which has become another running thing on the forum. But that doesn't mean I don't want to see other people who I like more (Pooley, Guderzo, van Vleuten, Häusler, Bastianelli for starters) take the spoils instead.

Though Bronzini's very durable for a sprinter, I'd argue that these Worlds don't suit her, I'll tip Emma Johansson to be the one Vos comes 2nd to this time. Olympics could suit her though.

 

[greenedge]

Vos is a legend.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Confusing Rai coverage, yesterday.
We appeared to have Pooley and Stevens off the front at one stage, then after an ad break, we have Vos away, with only Pooley chasing.
Emma paid the price and died a bit on the final hill.

The stage before, Vos hadn't been able to repeat the trick. She almost reached the same pair, but came up short, when the road went up for the final ascent.

This edition is very light on major climbs.

 

[Azabael]

Vos doesn't only win everything on the Road, but also on the track and the field. It's unseen.

 

[Izzy eviel]

She's already like 40 minutes behind, near sprinters Bronzini and Ina Yoko, and Chloe......Can anyone tell me if she had an accident or mechanical problem?

Isn't Lizzie more of a sprinter/classics rider then a mountain goat?

 

[theyoungest]

Vos doesn't only win everything on the Road, but also on the track and the field. It's unseen.

She's an omnivore, but AFAIK she's not that talented in track and field

 

[Azabael]

She's an omnivore, but AFAIK she's not that talented in track and field

Yea, anyone can become world and olympic champion without talent, right?

 

[WindLessBreeze]

Isn't Lizzie more of a sprinter/classics rider then a mountain goat?

She is, but never loses so much ground so soon.....She's always on top of things, never on the Gruppeto, with the Lanterne*Rouges and Maglia^Neras of the world...........She's like Valverde and Thor;even more; part of the Team Pursuit which only gets tested by the Aussies.....

 

[theyoungest]

Yea, anyone can become world and olympic champion without talent, right?

You probably meant track and mud. Track and field is what we would call "atletiek" in Dutch.

 

[Azabael]

You probably meant track and mud. Track and field is what we would call "atletiek" in Dutch.

Track and Cyclo-cross. Yes that, lol.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Isn't Lizzie more of a sprinter/classics rider then a mountain goat?

Yes, but she won the maglia bianca in the 2009 edition, albeit that was a relatively flat one (the big summit finish was Monte Serra, which doesn't really compare to Stelvio in 2010 or Ceresane Reale last year. Nevertheless it was all about Emma and Mara on Serra, just like Stelvio, but not as extreme), so it's perhaps not too unreasonable to have had hopes for her on this route, but her not being in the GC mix isn't all that surprising. More surprising is the anonymity of Olga Zabelinskaya and maybe to an extent Nicole Cooke, though she's tempered by teammate Guderzo being up there at the front (and having spent the first half of the race in the maglia azzurro, bringing back that awesome blue with fluorescent trim look we saw on Rabottini at the men's Giro).

Confusing Rai coverage, yesterday.
We appeared to have Pooley and Stevens off the front at one stage, then after an ad break, we have Vos away, with only Pooley chasing.
Emma paid the price and died a bit on the final hill.

The stage before, Vos hadn't been able to repeat the trick. She almost reached the same pair, but came up short, when the road went up for the final ascent.

This edition is very light on major climbs.

The stage before it was a trio though, which was probably the difference. Pooley and Stevens had been able to share some of the workload with Fabiana Luperini, so were a bit fresher; when they saw Vos coming up behind them they kicked on again to put more time into her, until Stevens eventually got clear solo.

Vos doesn't only win everything on the Road, but also on the track and the field. It's unseen.

It'll probably mean they need to go for more mountainous Giro routes, as she eats up these intermediate style stages; they need to really go for the big stages like the Stelvio in 2010 to open up more opportunities for the likes of Pooley. And more time trial mileage, for christ's sake. It's almost chronic these days (even if Vos won the ITT, it's woefully ignored in routes lately). I don't know too much about the track, but it's going to get even easier for her in the field now, with Daphny's retirement. Daphny won the overall CX WC last year, more or less by coming 2nd to Vos most of the time and winning when Vos wasn't there. She was easily the nearest rider to Marianne in quality, now there's going to likely be a pretty big gap back to the likes of van Paassen, Cant, Wyman and Compton.