lol. 2012 is one of my favorites. Liked the winner and the Stelvio stage was amazing. I know I am in the minority here. However I wonder how much that is to do with fans for some reason not thinking the winner was somehow “deserving” of a GT or not their personal favorite. There was a lot of exciting attacking and suspense right until the last minute. And Hesjdahl and his team managed Stelvio stage absolutely tactically brilliantly.
and 2017 was good too, lol. How can u not like Dumoulin? And it was the perfect balance between the strong TTer all-rounder against the climbers. And four riders with a chance to win in the very last ITT! And Dumo and the sh!t during the double Stelvio stage…
I do find it interesting. So many people here wanting suspense to the last moment. Willing to have routes designed to artificially keep certain riders in play. Frankly I think it is because they want their personal favorite rider to win. If they are kept in play, it becomes more interesting, but when they lose at the end then the GT was awful, no matter how close. Lol!!
I repeat, the history of cycling is full of amazing exploits and dramatic collapses. That is what people remember.
No one will remember anything about the 2022 Giro.
There is more to remember about the 2022 Giro than the 2012 Giro. There was not "a lot of exciting attacking" unless you're a paid-up member of the Matteo Rabottini tifosi, the very fact that almost every GC stage was a boring group ride until J-Rod did his thing 800m from the finish was precisely what people found boring about it. It would be slated even if it had a more "exciting" winner. Hesjedal is the perfect winner for the 2012 Giro - nondescript, never really seemed like a threat, in fact Scarponi even said at one point that they saw him suffering at the back of the group in week 1 and figured he would drop away so didn't attack him - and more fool them, because Hesjedal tended to get stronger as GTs went on and not attacking him in week 1 cost them because he had rode into form by the time anybody actually did try something in that race.
If you read through the threads on race designs and course reveals, you'll find a lot of us
don't want suspense to the last moment, because bigger gaps usually lead to more dramatic exploits and attacks from distance, whereas when everything is kept really close, everybody has too much to lose and so attacks become limited to the small digs for small amounts of time and the rest of the stage becomes processional. Races where the organisers have designed it to stay close until the last minute frequently result in heavy backloading that renders the rest of the race inconsequential, and also sometimes end in a damp squib when the whole build is for a massive stage 20 mountaintop finish only for the best climber to already have the jersey (2009 Tour, 2014 Giro). And if everybody has got into a negative mindset of fearing the losses that may occur if they take a risk, because instead of dropping a position or two they fall from the podium to outside the top 10 even, then this paralysis can completely ruin the racing even on those later stages which all the action has been reserved for.
In short, people's greatest fears and complaints about race routes are that they might encourage the 2012 Giro d'Italia to happen again.
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