Hello and welcome to Cycling Weekly's
preview of the first nine stages of the
Giro d'Italia and because this is the
100th edition of the Giro d'Italia the
organizers are wanting to celebrate
Italy and showcase as much of it as
possible so the first three stages
actually start in Sardinia.
That being a sprinter stage and the
opening today's the jerseys at stake who
are the contenders for this stage and
potentially the first maglia rosa.
There is not a massive field of sprinters at the Giro
this year I mean I think you'd have to
say that the sort of plum picks for that
first stage would be Andre Greipel
Fernando Gaviria yeah and probably Caleb
Ewan I would say. You've got other people
such as Giacomo Nizzolo but there are
certainly quite a few names who could
take pink on that first day.
Following stage one stage two goes from Olbia
which is where stage one finishes to Tortoli.
What can we see happening there you
think if you look at the numbers for
that final climb it's it's actually
quite quite tough one. It's 30 kilometres
long and they climb up to a thousand
meters from pretty much sea level. Yeah
but it's difficult to see any one of the
GC contenders getting into any sort of
trouble but it's quite conceivable that
if you're a sprinter you're not going to
make it over the top of that climb in
that in that front group so it's a very
good chance that we'll have two wearers
of maglia rosa so after two days yeah
I've noticed that on stage three and some
of the other stages that come later on
it seems to be a lot of large portions of
the route on coastlines, crosswinds could
play a significant role in those some of
those stages as well so... That's why your
team comes into it earlier than that if
you if you're a GC contender and you're
not the most confident in crosswinds I'm
thinking line Nairo Quintana and smaller
climbers Domenico Pozzovino that's
where your team has got to be there and
I've got to protect you so it'll all be
about good positioning if the wind is blown.
It doesn't look just on these first
stages of the whole that there's really
any moment where the GC guys can
actually relax and have a day where they
can totally chill out because this looks
like there's dangers on every stage.
You could argue that's kind of the hallmark
of the Giro it tends to be a much less
controlled race than the Tour de France
and and perhaps more so as you say more
so perhaps this year than other years
there isn't really a day when you can
kind of sit back and relax. So after the
first three stages on Sardinia we have
the first rest day sort of an enforced
rest day for traveling and and then the
race moves to Sicily which is Nibali's
neck of the woods. Yes the actually stage
5 actually ends in Messina where
Nibali is from. Nibali is nicknamed the
Shark of Messina. Exactly. The stage 4
is the big one of Mount Etna which the
first summit finish of the race.
Three weeks is a long time to hold your
form so what a lot of riders might be
doing is looking at the final ink and
thinking that is when the races can be
decided. So they are going to be maybe
going into the race not on completely
top form and building through. So having
a summit finish, a really important
summit finish, so early in the race you
could see in winner the might not expect
and you could see a few guys who you
would expect to be out there maybe
losing a bit of time and that made the
race very interesting going forward.
the next stage finishes in the silly
analogy are you saying Vincenzo Nibali
hometown do you think he's going to want
to sort of light it up it's a flat stage
but you think you're gonna know then
they believe it's you cannae to be
wasting wasting efforts on stage five
x-ray would interpret the work with is
he going to be really keen to be in pink
or some kind of jersey for that stage
you think that's an added incentive for
him at Aetna maybe but I doubt you want
to be in that position in my lads been
things I don't they were kind of see him
kind of restate with
the stage looks like a little bit of
interesting profile so yeah I think
looking over their next few stages stage
six and eight or two very similar stages
and you've got a few climbs early on
nothing that's going to cause too much
damage and then you've got a steep
finish and I wouldn't be surprised if
you see similar winners on both pages to
us
so stage 9 actually has a rather ominous
looking finish of a climb called the
blockhouse it's a really hard climb 13
kilometers at nine or ten percent it's
it's a tough one and it's comfortable
rest day so there's no the riders won't
be thinking I've got to save myself for
tomorrow this will be a flat stage and
then a big old charge up to the summit
finish it's a bit difficult to sort of
predict how selective this is going to
be because most mountainous stages you
expect a lot of like clones before a
summit finish like this but this is
pretty much playing flat and then as you
say a sort of charge it's actually
interestingly and the climb where Eddy
Merckx kind of kicked off is GC career
winning here in 1967 good snap to go on
to win the Giro so if you do win here
you get to being some pretty rarefied
company it's quite a long time but I
don't think we'll see any action till
right the end Team Sky Bar n Marino will
both have home to have eight guys in
front of in Chains o Nibelungen Thomas
it's going to be a real test of team
strength they're going to go up very
quickly we were teammates in front of
them and I think this will probably be
the first real GC kickoff of the race
I expected the nibbly Quintana Lander
Thomas all up there I think he'll be
vertically interesting to see how the
likes of nibbly Quintana those kind of
attacking smaller climbers do against
the time to move on or someone on on
something like this because essentially
it is it is a large warmup and then a
very difficult time trial up to the top
of the mountain
guys like da Milan like Thomas as well
they know that if Quintana honey believe
a shoe off so they can just stay on the
same effort upstate gradients not going
to eat off or sneaking up and they'll be
able to chase it back which team do you
think is the strongest and will sort of
be able to dominate more on this climb
when you talk about strong teams my eyes
always kind of look towards sky because
famously they've had strong teams and
grantors and auto combat if you've got
Gary Thomasson my calendar specially and
her nails need to be handy
Lopes you know you could do a lot worse
than the lineup
like that I'm actually gonna look at
Baron Morita in Shenzhen EB has got a
really strong team behind him it's got
guys like valerian Yoli has been with me
believe for years has been key Domus TV
is conferencing fits of former sky rider
and has worked for provement Wiggins
from the part navodaus 'kiss palazzo te
voir oh they're all the sort of guys who
can
well exhaust each one for mountains
borrow can do everything
strong strong time tireless some on the
flats strong on the first half of climbs
knows that there's a really strong team
and then they've got Visconti who will
do it anything but that's it so end of
stage nine like who are your predictions
so who is going to be in peak I'm going
to go from the pinch Enzo neighbourly I
think he's going to be really fired up
on that first summit finish in Italy and
and he's going to be a great Foreman
first week and it's going to in pink in
stage nine then I'm gonna go with I'm
going to go with everyone's favorite
Welshman you know Thomas he's been
leading in pretty good form running into
this race and I think scar not afraid to
try and take a jersey early and defend
it and I kind of think these kind of
clones will suit and so I fancy his
chances I I'm going to go with
controller okay all that remains is we'd
say thanks for watching and join us next
time for the second week of the way