Jurgen van Goolen will not ride the Giro in great form, he is allready focussing on the second half of the season (think Vuelta).
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dimspace said:
I'm leaning towards what Jaylew wrote in his post that Vandevelde is an uncertain because it might be that he is focusing more on the tour. He will probably be up there somewhere but perhaps not as a top 5 contender.
Ivan Basso all the way. Lepheimer will get dropped (wait and see) on the steep climbs of Italy like last year. Lance isn't in top shape. Ivan is, is on home soil, has the experience of having won it before and will demonstrate that he's the best 3 week stage racer in the world at the moment. If I'm wrong, Basso will be an athletic disappointment...
Merckx said:
ok... if we are going 1-5
1) basso 0.00
2) leipheimer +.55 (loses in the hills, gains on TT)
3) VdV +2.30
4) Armstrong (off of being there or therabouts supporting levi) +4.15
5) Menchov +4.17
being brave.. even going with timings
dimspace said:
Everything you say can and will be held against you
... Love the detailed timings, espeically the marginal difference of 2'' between Menchov and LA!
No way Lance makes the top 10, hes got far too much weight on him and just got beat by Zirbel in a TT, losing 90 seconds to Levi.
I want Cunego to win, but that wont happen.
I want Cunego to win, but that wont happen.
As expressed by others above...and my 2 cents...
Basso looks like guy on form and Leipheimer will I suspect be going for it big time.
IMO the wheels are slightly coming off the LA comeback train - because as those of us that done he come back thing (for me in a different sport) the head can do things the body can't. It is easy to watch it from a far and say I can do that...bit different getting the 'old engine' fired up again. And Contador is the (Astana) man for the Tour not Leipheimer. So Leipheimer will be pumped up big for this. A question for me is can Basso keep it going for 3 weeks, does he have the depth of conditioning?
Lots of others that can make the top 10. For me the next contender is Menchov - I think he is fed up of being the supporting player...he showed some real ambition last year in the TdF (even when he fell off!) It will be good to see if he has it in him to be up their for the win rather than just a strong podium contender.
I guess Cavendish will be cleaning up the sprints - does anyone know is he intending to ride the whole way to the finnish?
Basso looks like guy on form and Leipheimer will I suspect be going for it big time.
IMO the wheels are slightly coming off the LA comeback train - because as those of us that done he come back thing (for me in a different sport) the head can do things the body can't. It is easy to watch it from a far and say I can do that...bit different getting the 'old engine' fired up again. And Contador is the (Astana) man for the Tour not Leipheimer. So Leipheimer will be pumped up big for this. A question for me is can Basso keep it going for 3 weeks, does he have the depth of conditioning?
Lots of others that can make the top 10. For me the next contender is Menchov - I think he is fed up of being the supporting player...he showed some real ambition last year in the TdF (even when he fell off!) It will be good to see if he has it in him to be up their for the win rather than just a strong podium contender.
I guess Cavendish will be cleaning up the sprints - does anyone know is he intending to ride the whole way to the finnish?
180mmCrank said:
I surely hope he'll stay in Italy
Petacchi, Farrar and maybe Swift will be his closest rivals, but the way Cav just rode the mountains in Romandie, I doubt he'll make it to the finish in the giro...
I'm guessing we will see quite a bit of breakaways staying away since with this few sprinters with a genuine shot at winning there aren't going to be many teams working to bring breaks in.
It's crazy Liquigas is not sending Kreuziger. He was going absolutely balls out at Romandie, it was crazy. If Basso doesn't have the endurance then it's my belief this guy could challenge for the overall. When this guy is on form - and he is on fire right now, well did anyone see him crush all in that mountain time trial at the Tour de Suisse?
Guess they're saving him for the Tour? Hope he can keep it together til then cause I think he's a great dark horse that no one ever talks about as a GT contender.
Guess they're saving him for the Tour? Hope he can keep it together til then cause I think he's a great dark horse that no one ever talks about as a GT contender.
Updated news, from CN:
Robbie Mac chickens out of Giro! Yet will race lesser races instead.
What up with that? Its the Giro and he's going to let it go like that? Guess he can hide better at the lesser races than the Giro?
Robbie Mac chickens out of Giro! Yet will race lesser races instead.
What up with that? Its the Giro and he's going to let it go like that? Guess he can hide better at the lesser races than the Giro?
With all the sprinters skipping the giro for the tour it's looking like a very exciting sprint battle at the tour. It's going to be the toughest battle for the green jersey in a long time i think.
Probably he, and his team, had a look on the profiles of Giro stages and on his form and on the quality and the form of his opposotion and decided, that there are not really a lot of stages for pure sprinters in this edition of the Giro and that it's fairly unlikely for him to win any of them.
So having the chance to win smaller races is probably better than getting a beat up at the Giro and take away a spot in the team.
So having the chance to win smaller races is probably better than getting a beat up at the Giro and take away a spot in the team.
ElChingon said:
Chickens out????
I assume you haven't seen his crash from Scheldeprijs then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atLARyU24kU
patswana said:
Ah damn.
You should always read the news yourself shouldn't you.
That's indeed a much better reason than just thinking you don't have a chance. Shame on me for not checking the information properly.
But still I believe it's better for the Russians not to have him on the team anyway, it would've been a wasted spot in the roster in my opinion.
hulkgogan said:
Yep, I read an interview with Kreuziger a few days ago (on CN) and he said he's skipping the Giro to build up for Le Tour and is actually not on his top form yet. Perhaps we'll see a break-out year from him at the Tour!
I'm surprised by all the people saying Lance. They must think it's still 2004 or something.
Lance has been overweight in his upper body with muscle, hasn't gotten much racing in, broke his collarbone, is 37, took over three years off, has never even raced the Giro before, or raced in any of their big climbs, and has said he's focusing in winning the Tour (whether AC is in the way or not, JB will support Lance). And if we look back, he hasn't really attacked on a mountain stage in probably five years. We also haven't seen him race up anything big in four years, and nothing as steep as some of the Giro climbs in aeons. I expect him to do all he can to help win the TTT so he can get the Maglia Rosa, and then either finish way back, riding some support for Levi - if Levi can contend, or Lance will drop after Stage 15 or 16 and head to France to study the Tour course.
I don't know about Levi either. In the past he didn't seem to favor the steep climbs like the Giro has, with exception to last year's Angliru in the Vuelta and the Brasstown Bald, which is fairly short and didn't have Euro competition. He tends to like long grinders like you see in the Tour. I also haven't heard a peep that he's focusing on the Giro to win. Not one thing. All I heard after the ToC is that he was happy and would now support Lance going for his 8th Tour win. That was a huge disappointment to me, to hear him have such low expectations or lack of confidence. But where has he said he's going for a Giro win? Or even been focusing on winning it?
As to the TT lengths, they are actually still only about half of what the Tour was using as far as distance goes if you look back to the days of Indurain's wins. I believe 1994 had over 200km of TT. Double this year's Giro.
I think MellowVelo is spot on regarding the route. People thinking there isn't much climbing because the Selvio and Motirolo aren't here are going to be in for a surprise.
Stage 12's ITT is reported to be very technical. Lots of short up/downs and bends. Cunego said he might ride a standard road bike on it, to show you how technical it is. This is the kind of TT The Chicken would lose a half-hour on. I think we'll see some surprises when it's over.
Stage 17 should completely obliterate the field. At only 83km, with half of that one giant climb up the monstrous Blockhaus. There will be constant attacks with small groups of riders clustering together 20" or so off of each other, with repeated hard attacks in the last 5km. This is the kind of racing Lance hasn't done well in, in probably 8-9 years.
What I mean by that is Lance's last several Tour wins were him safely following a Postal/Disco team all the way up the final climb to the last 5km or so where they'd launch him. He hasn't attacked or had to chase on his own on any big climbs in years and years.
Though he looked good in Trentino, I question Basso still over three weeks with his long layoff, but I do think he will seriously contend. Basso says he'll work with Lance, and Levi by proxy. I think because Basso likes the "Postal Train" style of racing. But Cunego, Simoni and DiLuca know this, and say they'll work with each other attack over and over and over in order to disrupt this, even if it causes them to blow up. This right here might make for some interesting racing, and someone like Menchov or Sastre could come through unscathed - two riders I expect to do quite well anyway.
And to be completely frank (jaded perhaps) if we see Astana blast everyone away I'm going to be highly suspicious of them running on some sort of Ferrari fuel. Sorry.
Lance has been overweight in his upper body with muscle, hasn't gotten much racing in, broke his collarbone, is 37, took over three years off, has never even raced the Giro before, or raced in any of their big climbs, and has said he's focusing in winning the Tour (whether AC is in the way or not, JB will support Lance). And if we look back, he hasn't really attacked on a mountain stage in probably five years. We also haven't seen him race up anything big in four years, and nothing as steep as some of the Giro climbs in aeons. I expect him to do all he can to help win the TTT so he can get the Maglia Rosa, and then either finish way back, riding some support for Levi - if Levi can contend, or Lance will drop after Stage 15 or 16 and head to France to study the Tour course.
I don't know about Levi either. In the past he didn't seem to favor the steep climbs like the Giro has, with exception to last year's Angliru in the Vuelta and the Brasstown Bald, which is fairly short and didn't have Euro competition. He tends to like long grinders like you see in the Tour. I also haven't heard a peep that he's focusing on the Giro to win. Not one thing. All I heard after the ToC is that he was happy and would now support Lance going for his 8th Tour win. That was a huge disappointment to me, to hear him have such low expectations or lack of confidence. But where has he said he's going for a Giro win? Or even been focusing on winning it?
As to the TT lengths, they are actually still only about half of what the Tour was using as far as distance goes if you look back to the days of Indurain's wins. I believe 1994 had over 200km of TT. Double this year's Giro.
I think MellowVelo is spot on regarding the route. People thinking there isn't much climbing because the Selvio and Motirolo aren't here are going to be in for a surprise.
Stage 12's ITT is reported to be very technical. Lots of short up/downs and bends. Cunego said he might ride a standard road bike on it, to show you how technical it is. This is the kind of TT The Chicken would lose a half-hour on. I think we'll see some surprises when it's over.
Stage 17 should completely obliterate the field. At only 83km, with half of that one giant climb up the monstrous Blockhaus. There will be constant attacks with small groups of riders clustering together 20" or so off of each other, with repeated hard attacks in the last 5km. This is the kind of racing Lance hasn't done well in, in probably 8-9 years.
What I mean by that is Lance's last several Tour wins were him safely following a Postal/Disco team all the way up the final climb to the last 5km or so where they'd launch him. He hasn't attacked or had to chase on his own on any big climbs in years and years.
Though he looked good in Trentino, I question Basso still over three weeks with his long layoff, but I do think he will seriously contend. Basso says he'll work with Lance, and Levi by proxy. I think because Basso likes the "Postal Train" style of racing. But Cunego, Simoni and DiLuca know this, and say they'll work with each other attack over and over and over in order to disrupt this, even if it causes them to blow up. This right here might make for some interesting racing, and someone like Menchov or Sastre could come through unscathed - two riders I expect to do quite well anyway.
And to be completely frank (jaded perhaps) if we see Astana blast everyone away I'm going to be highly suspicious of them running on some sort of Ferrari fuel. Sorry.
Here's the one you've all been waiting for:-
Team Astana
Final selection:
ARMSTRONG Lance
BRAJKOVIC Jani
LEIPHEIMER Levi
POPOVYCH Yaroslav
RUBIERA Chechu
HORNER Chris
MORABITO Steve
NAVARRO Dani
ZEITS Andrey
My initial thoughts? Where are the roulers?
A lot of mountain men, so they clearly recognise the difficulty of Giro climbs, after last year and Contador's isolation. Looks designed to try and reinvent those mountain charges of the glory years.
Not sure they will fare well in Central Italy, though, where trains tend to get derailed.
Also, where is the Kazakh representation? Is just a single rider going to keep the teams backers in place or are the rumours true?
Team Astana
Final selection:
ARMSTRONG Lance
BRAJKOVIC Jani
LEIPHEIMER Levi
POPOVYCH Yaroslav
RUBIERA Chechu
HORNER Chris
MORABITO Steve
NAVARRO Dani
ZEITS Andrey
My initial thoughts? Where are the roulers?
A lot of mountain men, so they clearly recognise the difficulty of Giro climbs, after last year and Contador's isolation. Looks designed to try and reinvent those mountain charges of the glory years.
Not sure they will fare well in Central Italy, though, where trains tend to get derailed.
Also, where is the Kazakh representation? Is just a single rider going to keep the teams backers in place or are the rumours true?
Alpe d'Huez said:
Agreed, nice analysis. Just a couple of comments. I think Simoni, Cunego and DiLuca were just lucky they weren't riding against a Pantani, Armstrong or Basso at their top at the Giros they won. Their's, and I have always thought this, were circumstantial wins do to inferior competition.
I have little doubt, however, that Basso (apart from OP which to me diminishes nothing from his talent, because all his major competitors were jack-up too at these major appointments: Basso just got caught) is a real talent and that he will be as strong, or nearly so, as 2006.
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