Teams & Riders Giulio Pellizzari: Super Sub

[Samu Cuenca]

Bora made a tactical mistake. Should have sat up in stage 16, so he would have freedom to infiltrate breaks. he would have won today's stage from the break.

He's already raced one Giro where that was his goal. He went to this race to be a domestique, but now he's proved to be one of the strongest climbers himself and it's still possible for him to break into the top 5. There's absolutely nothing wrong with targeting the GC now, which will also be a more valuable experience for him going forward.

 

[Red Rick]

He's already had raced one Giro where that was his goal. He went to this race to be a domestique, but now he's proved to be one of the strongest climbers himself and it's still possible for him to break into the top 5. There's absolutely nothing wrong with targeting the GC now, which will also be a more valuable experience for him going forward.

The stage to win easily from the break was yesterday, today it got mowed down on a false flat where he wouldn't have survived.

And he still might get a stage win if he gets away with the right group.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The stage to win easily from the break was yesterday, today it got mowed down on a false flat where he wouldn't have survived.

And he still might get a stage win if he gets away with the right group.

I think he would have had a chance from the break today if he had failed to follow the favourites yesterday. Bardet wasn't far from making it.

If Roglič hadn't started yesterday, then I still think it would have been a reasonable choice to see what he could achieve from the GC group before deciding on something else. Of course if he now cracks on Friday, then he and the team risk going home with nothing, but you can't blame Pellizzari for their other riders not reaching their best levels/not having better luck.

 

[Brullnux]

He's already raced one Giro where that was his goal. He went to this race to be a domestique, but now he's proved to be one of the strongest climbers himself and it's still possible for him to break into the top 5. There's absolutely nothing wrong with targeting the GC now, which will also be a more valuable experience for him going forward.

I also think, given the circumstances, a top five in GC is a better/more fulfilling achievement than a stage win from the break.

 

[Links2003]

I also think, given the circumstances, a top five in GC is a better/more fulfilling achievement than a stage win from the break.

For the team, a stage win would be more important than 5th place. They need a success after the difficult Giro and the generally poor first half of the year. Chef Denk also made it clear today that they want a stage win, which will be difficult.
I don't know what's better for Giulio. Top 5 or top 8 would of course be a great achievement. Maybe that's even the bigger goal for him personally. But a stage win remains. He hasn't won much as a pro yet. As a clear classification rider, it doesn't get any easier if you're not so strong in sprints. That's why a stage win would be worth more than 5th place from my point of view, even if a performance over 3 weeks is stronger than on a single day.

 

[Red Rick]

Given circumstances, top 5 is clearly better especially if you do it with a show of force in the final 2 mountain stages.

 

[Pippo_San]

I expected a little bit more from him today. He really looks like an Ivan Basso sort of climber, tho without his panache yet. A very diesel sort of climber. And a naturally aspirated one, not turbo.

 

[yaco]

He's already raced one Giro where that was his goal. He went to this race to be a domestique, but now he's proved to be one of the strongest climbers himself and it's still possible for him to break into the top 5. There's absolutely nothing wrong with targeting the GC now, which will also be a more valuable experience for him going forward.

You ride for GC when you specifically prepare for this event. For example, he rode a soft 2nd ITT which is not conducive to GC. It will be hard but not impossible for him to win a stage from the GC group.

 

[SafeBet]

Rewatched his Mortirolo descent.
Dropped the maglia rosa group quickly. Bridged to Carapaz. Dropped Carapaz for good and was at least 20" ahead at the end of the descent.

Not bad for someone who was perceived as a terrible descender.

 

[Red Rick]

Rewatched his Mortirolo descent.
Dropped the maglia rosa group quickly. Bridged to Carapaz. Dropped Carapaz for good and was at least 20" ahead at the end of the descent.

Not bad for someone who was perceived as a terrible descender.

Took 30s on anyone who matters on the Strava segment, and all of that was in the final 10 minutes of the descent so he wasn't even trying in the first part.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Next time, faced with an oppotunity to take time on a descent, grab the chance and ignore the whining from other team's riders. Otherwise it may be difficult to win anything moving forward.

 

[Links2003]

The biggest challenge for Guilio will be to improve his explosiveness. And that is very difficult and many drivers don't succeed. Not everyone can do it. Without that, it will be difficult in the future. You saw that today, you even saw it in his attack when he finished second. They let him go. You saw it today too. Carapaz can open up gaps. Del Toro can do that brilliantly too. A Gee or Yates can't do that. Then you just can't get away even though you're similarly strong.
That's not a criticism. But that will be his biggest challenge.

 

[Red Rick]

The biggest challenge for Guilio will be to improve his explosiveness. And that is very difficult and many drivers don't succeed. Not everyone can do it. Without that, it will be difficult in the future. You saw that today, you even saw it in his attack when he finished second. They let him go. You saw it today too. Carapaz can open up gaps. Del Toro can do that brilliantly too. A Gee or Yates can't do that. Then you just can't get away even though you're similarly strong.
That's not a criticism. But that will be his biggest challenge.

He looks eager to make something happen, but it's a bit hard to blame it all on explosiveness for me, because if you're much fresher than the rest, you can compensate for less snap quite easily.

I'm a bit wary of overreaction to stage 16 and saying "this is how good everyone is" before those results don't continue the same way in the rest of a Grand Tour.

 

[Bombarolo]

I'm very impressed by his performance.
He didn't even prepare the Giro optimally as he wasn't scheduled to take part and still delivered quite well. His climb in stage 16 was absolutely fantastic and these last few days, despite not having the legs to compete for the win, he never panicked and paced himself very well which is quite rare for a 21 years old.

Now i'm expecting another significant step for next year.

 

[cen]

The next great GC hope

 

[CyclistAbi]

Great performance through the whole Giro.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Good showing this Giro. He was very impressive as Roglic's domestique and rode a good race for himself when Roglic crashed out. I was particularly impressed by his ITT, his gravel skills and just his general ability on a bike. I thought he was a very limited climber, but he's actually pretty well-rounded. Still, I can't help but feel that he lacks something if he wants to win races. His attacks seem rather weak, so perhaps he needs to work on his acceleration. Of course he's very young still, so he has plenty of time.

 

[Peyroteo94]

I don't see him as a future GT winner to be honest. Zero kick, his mountain ability is not worldclass, his TT is mediocre but he is very young, maybe he will improve significantly.

 

[Red Rick]

Good showing this Giro. He was very impressive as Roglic's domestique and rode a good race for himself when Roglic crashed out. I was particularly impressed by his ITT, his gravel skills and just his general ability on a bike. I thought he was a very limited climber, but he's actually pretty well-rounded. Still, I can't help but feel that he lacks something if he wants to win races. His attacks seem rather weak, so perhaps he needs to work on his acceleration. Of course he's very young still, so he has plenty of time.

Lack of explosivity is actually worrying I think, especially if you struggle on short climbs because to me it just signals a lower aerobic ceiling. It's easier to improve endurance than max aerobic capacity. On the other hand, Roglic' trainer had said they had focused much more on endurance for this Giro, and even Roglic was struggling with explosive effort, so it may definitely be a deliberate lack of training for this Giro.

 

[Brullnux]

I don't see him as a future GT winner to be honest. Zero kick, his mountain ability is not worldclass, his TT is mediocre but he is very young, maybe he will improve significantly.

Seems a bit harsh, he rode 6.15 w/kg on Stage 16 up the final climb, which was the best pre Finestre climbing performance this Giro. I think his climbing ability definitely shows potential to be world-class, and you can't really expect him to be there already at 21 as a WT rookie.

His TT has also come on miles in just one year in an actually professional set-up, to the point it's already now solid if unexceptional. He beat Carapaz and Yates in TT #1, matched Del Toro in TT #2 without going all in.

His lack of kick is the biggest issue. Maybe he's the second coming of Basso.

 

[Brullnux]

Lack of explosivity is actually worrying I think, especially if you struggle on short climbs because to me it just signals a lower aerobic ceiling. It's easier to improve endurance than max aerobic capacity. On the other hand, Roglic' trainer had said they had focused much more on endurance for this Giro, and even Roglic was struggling with explosive effort, so it may definitely be a deliberate lack of training for this Giro.

I'm not sure how much he struggles here, in fairness. Le Motte was disappointing, but he did well on the way to Siena and has some good one day results from last year. He had some decent performances on shorter climbs in tbe Tour of the Alps/Slovenia/Austria, too. There was also the Monte Pana stage last year, where he rode the final climb faster than everyone bar Pogacar and Dani Martinez, despite having been in a (fairly short) breakaway. I think there are just some question marks for us here, which probably only Bora know at the moment.

There's no doubt to me though that his acceleration is too weak, and that'll be a real issue unless he becomes so good he can ride people off his wheel a la Basso or if he improves it at least somewhat.

 

[RedheadDane]

Wait, he won the Best Young Italian Award at the Giro?
There is a "BYIA" at the Giro? (Though, I suppose that's less strange than having one at the Tour or the Vuelta...)

 

[SafeBet]

Petition to change the thread title since Pellizzari is already a better GT rider than Ciccone.