Rate the 2019 Giro d'Italia

[JosephK]

Re:

Gave it a 5. It was fine, I enjoyed it as always. Didn't have any particular magic for me this time, no big drama, no big standout stages. For me a 5 is an enjoyable, watchable race. I mean, it's the Giro. Hard to do worse than a 5, it's just such a beautiful race.

Actually I should have given it a 7. No Froome. Light years more enjoyable.

Yeah, I'm tempted to up my 5 to a 6 or maybe even a 7 because Dawg and his train were elsewhere. Also, I picked Yates to win in the early poll -- not because he was a favorite of mine but I expected/feared he would do what he did in the first two weeks of the Giro last year . . . and keep doing that in week 3. So the lack of Yates dominating made it a better Giro for me. All subjective, of course.

 

[The Hegelian]

5, but it's relative to more than a few amazing Giro's in the last decade or so. This one just never really delivered that much great racing. Good racing. Never great.

Tommy D was a big loss. Yates not really firing a shot was a loss. The parcours were not great - too little too late. But Carapaz was a worthy winner.

 

[Põhja Konn]

6.

One thing that caught my eye was how almost everyone let themselves be fooled into thinking this Giro was backloaded thanks to the fact that there was no GC relevant stages in the first half of the race apart from TTs - myself included. Now, looking back with the benefit of hindsight, the hardest and most decisive part was from stage 13 to 16. After that there was only one road stage left - stage 20 - where proper time was possible to be taken back. As such for me the last week was probably the biggest disappointment with not much happening between tuesday and saturday. Racing on Manghen and scenery offered by the mountain itself were great, but other than that the Giro was effectively over after Mortirolo with the strongest rider with strongest team having the pink. Overall the big mountain stages (and medium one to Como) were greatly enjoyable, but there was a overly lenghty buildup during first 1,5 weeks and a 3-day lull in the middle of the last one, so cannot give it over 6.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Overall I enjoyed it and gave it an 8

The weather wasn't helpful - no strong crosswinds and the omission of Gavia but that was always a possibility

Movistar were excellent - really getting the most out of everyone on the team and regularly managing to get Rojas and Amador in the break. Nibali's team were also very good. The retirements of Dumoulin and De Plus certainly had a big effect on the race but those things happen in every GT.

The sprints were good quality and competitive even if the stages were mostly dull (the Cima stage being the exception). Viviani and Gaviria only managed 1 win between them and the points jersey was surprisingly flipped on the last flat stage.

Ciccone was impressive throughout and made the mountains comp a procession. Masnada and Carthy were fun to watch. The stage wins of Bilbao (both of them), Benedetti and Zakarin were great.

And of course no Kirby for the entire race so no mute button required. Some of the tv production was poor though. It's easy to forget that Carapaz took 1 minute 19 secs over Nibali and Roglic on the one big MTF of the race - mainly because we didn't see any of it

 

[Robert5091]

Re: Re:

This Giro was kind of like Tour de France. 3 from me.

It wasn't like the Tour de France. Carapaz attacked 30 km before the finish to take pink. In the Tour we haven't seen an attack like that in many years.

Kruijswijk tried a long one from 70 km out last year on stage 12 but Sky reeled him in.

 

[del1962]

Gave it an 8 as definitely enjoyed the racing

 

[IndianCyclist]

6
Solid Giro nothing too bad but nothing outstanding either.
Top contenders missed - Bernal Dumoulin Yates
No outstanding stages other than the TTs dominated by Roglic
Once Movi had the jersey, they throttled the life out of the giro just like Ineos

 

[hfer07]

I rated it 6 - and that's way generous, all because of Carapaz & MoviStar. Half of it was Boring with neither Mountains stages not Mixed terrain ones in the 1st week, which amounted to nothing but having Dumoulin crashed out the race, & all the nonsense. But like I stated: It was great to watch Carapaz & Landani working wonders to conquer il Giro. Roglic did peak too early, so he needs to re-dial his form. Then was Nibs whose for was good but not to defeat the Movistar pair - and he made the mistake of concentrating exclusively on Roglic..... Sooo frustrating for MAL to experience such stroke of bad luck- Yates disappointed, Majka not good enough, Mollema not good enough....
BTW- Soooooooo happy for Chavito's stage victory