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Question Rate the 2020 Giro'd Italia

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The 103rd Giro is over, and it's definitely going to go down as a memorable one for a few reasons. Thankfully the race arrived to Milan safely after 21 stages, altough obviously we had to deal with the big changes to saturday's stage (and well, friday's too I guess). Now it's time to discuss how good the race actually was.
 
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5 or a 6. It wasn't as good as the Tour, in my opinion.

What I love about Grand Tours is watching the biggest names in cycling competing in the ultimate test of endurance. Hart, Hindley and Kelderman are certainly not the biggest names in the sport and riders unwilling to race 250km diminishes the test of endurance.

There were some good things such as Almeida's valiant effort, Etna stage, Sagan stage and the final two mountain stages. With regards to the final mountain stages some posters said that, if it were bigger names than Hart and Hindley, we would be going crazy. I agree with that to an extent but I think a lot of us would be disappointed with the lack of attacks. The Stelvio and Sestriere stages were essentially just Hindley following Hart following Dennis for 40km with a sprint at the end. It was nice to see big gaps with riders scattered all around, but on the Stelvio stage there was not a single attack from a GC rider. The Hindley/Kelderman dynamic was interesting but not massively exciting. I actually thought the final two mountain stages in the Tour were better than in the Giro. And the final TT was far more exciting.

I do feel I am being too harsh on this Giro as, although I didn't think it was an extraordinary race for the ages, it was unusual and interesting.

The coming years will tell us more about the quality of Hart and Hindley and Almeida too. Comparing them to the likes of Pogacar, Evenepoel, Bernal, Mas, Martinez, Kämna and Sivakov, I don't know how successful they will be. Certainly the future is bright.

One thing I never want to see again is Ineos winning the GC, the white jersey, 7 stages and the team classification.
 
7

Before Dennis decided to start trying it was about a 3.

The main negative is obviously the weak field, but that feels a bit harsh since we're in the middle of a pandemic and should probably enjoy whatever racing we can. Lose a point for that stage 19 mess though.

For the positives, stage 18 was the best GT stage I've seen since Froome on the Finestre, and stage 20 was way better than I was expecting after the stage had been re-routed. Lots of enjoyable medium mountain stages as well, and only 4 full bunch sprint stages which I feel is about the right amount.
 
I gave it a 6 but after thinking it over a bit more could have gone to a 7.

I think I'm perhaps overly down on it as an overall experience because while it was unexpected and tense and involved some great riding, we didn't really see too many head to head battles or attacks and it was a lot more like people just being unable to hold the wheel as the pace was raised.

With that said plenty of great individual moments :)
 
A solid 8.

First, because it was held at all == 4 points
Second, Ineos flipping the script and winning by attacking, watching Ganna and Dennis steamroll everyone == > 2 points
Third, the emergence of three relatively unheralded riders, Almeida, Hart and Hindley ==>2 points

My favorite stages: Sagan's win and both the Stelvio and Sestrieres stages. Etna was an early warning that this was going to be a different kind of race than we expected.

Only thing that kept it from a 9 or 10 == cancellation of hardest stage route, the riders' protest (boo) and the fact that none of the veterans really contested the GC. I was really hoping that Nibali, at least, could have summoned up his inner shark again.

I'm disappointed that Remco, Thomas, SK and Yates weren't there, but in the end it didn't matter to my enjoyment.
 
In short this Giro had an exciting denouement, but a top rider in shape could have won this by five minutes.

I don't disagree at all, but that in turn made it an entertaining race.

I had absolutely zero knowledge of both Almeida and Hindley before the start, and I thought Dennis was a spoiled brat who only wanted to race on his terms.

It's interesting to speculate what might have been if the four riders I mention above would have raced. I think it would have come down to Remco and Thomas, with Ineos's experience making the difference in the end. Hart and Almeida would have not been factors except as domestiques.
 
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I do agree with the opinions that if we had this same race, but instead of TGH, Hindley, Almeida, Kelderman or Bilbao it were guys like Yates, Quintana, Landa , G or Dumoulin, it would've been considered an all-timer. But what can you do, I loved the Stelvio stage, but at the same time I found myself not really caring about who will win or anything like that, just wanting to see chaos, which I absolutely got.

So yeah, not really sure here, because the race was great, pretty much all you could ask for with such field. Some good medium mountain/hilly stages, the Sagan solo win, and the big mountains delivered too. Shame about the Sestriere stage obviously, but even that turned out to be really good.

At the end of the day, of all the editions I've seen, I am putting this ahead of 2019, 14-11, 2009. Worse than 18-15 and 2010. So a very solid 7, which again, with top names innit probably would've been maybe even a 9. But maybe we will be looking at this one differently in a few years, when Hindley or Hart do indeed turn out to be more than just guys who took advantage of an already weak field getting even much more weak with Yates, Krujswijk and G abandoning and Nibali not being in a top form and one of them/both become big time Grand Tour rider/riders, who knows.
 
5, I reckon. Mediocrity personified. A couple of really dreadful stages counterbalanced by a couple of really great ones. A very long, tiresome stretch of nothing happening in the GC with only Sagan's post-rest-day resurrection ride really giving us anything memorable from the middle third of the race. Stage 19 leaves a bad taste in the mouth but be honest with yourselves: that stage would have been no different if they did the whole distance. I don't like it for its implications and the way endurance is being marginalised in the sport, but the package of that single day's racing was not changed significantly by the shortening. Endurance is being marginalised in a lot of sports, as a way of selling advertising execs from an older generation on "how to appeal to the younger generation" forgetting that the generation of "need it now" is also the generation of binge watching and dumbing everything down and shortening everything is a really artificial conclusion. And while it may have impacted stage 20 somewhat more, clearly TGH and JRH were going to be the top two riders regardless.

I haven't been given too many particular reasons to care about Jai, and the sycophantic commentary from GCN was making me hate Tao despite his having nothing to do with it (I came around full circle to feeling sorry for him for the fact that this commentary was making me hate him).

We were denied some of the best prospects for racing at the business end of the race other than in the Stelvio stage for a variety of reasons. Visconti and Guerreiro battling could have made the GPM a lot more interesting, as it was Guerreiro kind of won it by default when his only remaining rival dropped out; Simon Yates having to withdraw was a big disappointment because although he had had no form, the way he'd enlivened the latter part of the 2019 Tour meant he could have been an intriguing factor towards the end of the race, like a Ben O'Connor that is infinitely more proven; and of course the redesign of stage 20 greatly hurt what could have been a potential stage for the ages with the GC on the line as it was; it would have been a completely different story with a climb like the Agnello to begin things off - would have been very interesting to see if Dennis' super form could have continued on a steeper climb that on paper would suit him less, and although I'd have expected on his form him to still be there toward the end, had he had to go deeper for the Agnello we might have seen more of Hindley and Geogeghan Hart battling mano a mano, which we got precious little of.
 
Simon Yates having to withdraw was a big disappointment because although he had had no form, the way he'd enlivened the latter part of the 2019 Tour meant he could have been an intriguing factor towards the end of the race
Yates withdrawed because he caught COVID-19, which was very probably the reason of him losing minutes on Etna ( he looked very bad on stage 5 as well, and got dropped on crosswinds before everyone came back ). He had great form otherwise, came to the race after comfortably winning Tirreno-Adriatico.
 
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In total, probably a 5.5-6. Etna was good but then the race kinda died down except some nice hilly stages in the 2nd week before the TT and Piancavallo gave further twists. Then the final week had 2 great stages, but in total there were some awful stages like Madonna di Campiglio, the stage in Friuli and the stage to Vieste. The shortening of stage 19 also left a poor taste in mouth. All in all, it was probably saved by Sky's attacks over Stelvio and Sestriere.
Voted 6, but feel 5.5 is a better option if we can use decimals.
 
++++ great final week
++++ Stelvio proper delivered after 15 years
++ very tactical final week
++ Piancavallo and Sestriere ridden hard
++ good Monselice and Tortoletto stage (both times mainly thanks to Sagan)
++ some fair action during the 1st week
++ GT crashed out of the race
++ Pern in the top 10

---- wasted days with nothing or wrongly placed stages like Cesenatico or San Daniele del Friuli
-- some GC leaders (including GT) going out because of crashes or health reasons
-- wonder about a potential GT vs S. Yates debacle after TA, but Tao Hart vs Jai was decent for me
-- maybe lack of Agnello but then i somehow doubt anything would really happen there considering the GC situation but Kelderman possibly slipping out of the podium spot
-- Palermo TT lottery
-- that whole Asti protest debacle
-- Sunweb sort of imploding (unlike in TdF)
-- my memory is getting worse and worse

7/10
 
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I gave it a 7, but reserve the right to revise that up to an 8 or even 9 in future years if/when one or more of Hart, Hindley or Almeida goes on to win another GT or monument, or at least podium some big races consistently.

But even if none of them ever win another race as long as they live, it will have been a good one. The last week was some epic racing, and while sure it would have been nice to see TGH and Jai go in a proper head-to-head up a mountain, I don't think it's fair to take away from the epic rides that Rohaaaaaaaaan put in on those 2 days.
 
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5/10

Sagan's win and how much better Ganna is at TTing than anyone else were the only memorable things from the first 14 days.

The route was largely uninspiring and so provided largely unmemorable racing. Etna and Roccaraso were bad. Tortoreto and Cesenatico the only real hilly stages in the race – GTs need more than that. So many of the stages were just 'so what' even before anyone raced them.

We had about 3 non-TT stages of actual GC movement, and very little before the final week. Stelvio was great but after the top it was pretty quiet. Piancavallo and Sestriere were interesting but not memorable really. Final TT was 'tense', I guess lol. Vegni left a bad taste with his ranting too – get someone in who won't threaten the riders next time.

The poor quality startlist even before the best 3 riders left really let things down, too. It wouldn't be a shock if the Tao-Hindley-Kelderman podium is a future quiz question about how did this GT podium ever happen.


If the Vuelta finished today I would already put it above this Giro. In Spain they already had three stages that were more entertaining than 18 stages in Italy...
 
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