thelawlorfaithful Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 The Contenders This is gonna be such a bloodbath I am become death, Destroyer of Worlds. Tadej Pogacar, UAE, 25 Everything is lining up for the greatest season in Cycling history. Crashes last month in the Basque Country and Italy have decimated all but two of the six premier riders in the peloton. In any case the three that would be a threat to him weren’t showing up anyway. This portion of Tadej’s assault at cycling history was always a foregone conclusion. He’s raced 10 days this year and won 5 times. None of them were cupcake races. He blew apart the emerging monument Strade Bianchi at the beginning of March and soloed for 40 km. He then took third at the Milan San Remo, the longest race of the year and one built mostly for sprinters. Then he cruised to victory in Catalonia in his only stage race so far, winning every mountain stage. Finally last month he detonated a nuke at Liege Bastogne Liege, the oldest of the monuments, annihilating every great one day rider with an attack 80 km from the finish and riding to victory 3 minutes ahead. The holy grail of cycling is the triple crown: winning the Giro, turning back around in a month and winning the Tour, and then topping it off with the World Championship. This has been accomplished twice. A Giro Tour double is by far considered the hardest part. Six men and one woman have pulled off the feat. The last being Marco Pantani 26 years ago. Every name on that list is cycling royalty. The Giro always seemed like a foregone conclusion once the other big 3 announced they weren’t riding it against Tadej. Now with the current heavyweight champ Jonas Vingegaard out with broken ribs and a punctured lung for who knows how long, the double seems attainable. UAE has sent an adequate if mediocre team in support. They’re saving their big guns for the showdown in July. Barring an accident or illness, Tadej will notch this on his belt. That would make his season already an all timer. The Tour, the Olympics, The World Championship, and a 4th win in Lombardy would make it immortal. Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 Edit: It’s funny the best doping doctor of all time was named Ferrari. Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 Edit: Spaghetti and water Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 Second Place If there is to be any drama, it’ll be for who among this motley crew can reach the podium in three weeks. Geraint Thomas, Ineos Grenadiers, 37 14 seconds. The last mountain. He had been that close to going from that elite group of riders that won a Tour de France to the rarified air of those that had also won the Giro. And at 36, in a sport getting younger and younger, he would have been the oldest man to win a Grand Tour in more that a decade. But his eternally snake bitten rival finally had angels on his shoulders, and Thomas’ legs gave out at the end. He did everything right and got beat by the younger man. I’d pick him for 2nd. The 70km of time trialing plays to his advantage. He can’t kick in the mountains like when he won the Tour back in 2018, but he can still follow pretty well. He’s a savvy veteran that knows how to ride within himself. Ineos sent a solid young team to back him up. Danny Martinez, Bora Hansgrohe, 28 Thomas’ former teammate is a good climber and Bora has worked hard to retool their team towards GC contention at Grand Tours. Unfortunately for Martinez all the chips are in for Primoz Roglic in July. Still, he gets his first shot at true leadership in a Grand Tour. He’ll lose time I. The time trials but if anyone can stay with Tadej when the road goes up, it might be him. Romain Bardet, DSM, 33 The Frenchman looked close to hanging them up last year but decided to press on for another year. He’ll get killed in the TT’s and his team is trash but the tiny climber can go up mountains fast. Somebody has to podium this thing. Nairo Quintana, Movistar, 34 It was only 10 years ago he went home in pink. The days of Nairo taking on Chris Froome and team Sky single handedly seem long ago. Movistar is the biggest headcase of a team that is so if he’s gonna make a run at it he’s not gonna get there through strategy. Ben O’CConnor We’re really scraping the bottle of the barrel here. Please Tadej, don’t crash. Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 2 Author Share Posted May 2 Oddly, this years Giro has a pretty weak field. It will still be fun, simply because it is the Giro. Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 On 5/2/2024 at 3:21 PM, Spaztecs said: Oddly, this years Giro has a pretty weak field. It will still be fun, simply because it is the Giro. Tadej scared everybody. Everybody wanted to win in July. And the crashes blew up everybody’s big plans. 1 Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 Vingegaard will officially miss the Dauphine in June but hopes to be there for the Tour. Yeah right. @MetropolitanCowboy GCKuss Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 4 Share Posted May 4 Stage 1 is a jaunt around Turin That sprinters probably won’t get over the Maddelena 30 km out and that stiff little kicker should make for a small bunch. Allaphilipe kind of day back in his prime. Maybe Tadej takes pink. Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 The Ironman List Most grandtour starts by competitors Number of starts in grand tours before the start of Giro d'Italia 2024. Pos. Rider Starts Tour Giro Vuelta 1 POZZOVIVO Domenico 24 3 17 4 2 GESINK Robert 22 10 2 10 3 MAJKA Rafał 21 8 5 8 4 THOMAS Geraint 19 12 5 2 5 CARUSO Damiano 18 7 6 5 6 GESCHKE Simon 18 11 3 4 7 CLARKE Simon 18 8 4 6 8 DE MARCHI Alessandro 17 5 7 5 9 QUINTANA Nairo 17 9 2 6 10 SERRY Pieter 16 - 9 7 11 CHAVES Esteban 15 4 4 7 12 BARDET Romain 15 10 2 3 13 CIMOLAI Davide 14 5 5 4 14 MEZGEC Luka 13 4 5 4 15 TRENTIN Matteo 12 7 2 3 16 HEPBURN Michael 12 2 8 2 17 HIRT Jan 12 1 6 5 18 LUTSENKO Alexey 12 8 1 3 19 EWAN Caleb 11 5 5 1 20 WARBASSE Larry 10 - 5 5 show more Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 This years gruppo Americana is fairly lean # Ridername Team 1 BARTA Will Movistar Team 2 LAMPERTI Luke Soudal Quick-Step 3 PICKRELL Riley Israel - Premier Tech 4 SHEFFIELD Magnus INEOS Grenadiers 5 VERMAERKE Kevin Team dsm-firmenich PostNL 6 WARBASSE Larry Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team 7 WOODS Michael Israel - Premier Tech Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 Senor Quatro, JJ Rojas, is the Movistar Director Sportif. I'm going out on a limb and predicting a Movistar rider finishes fourth in the Giro. Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 The OG List The 5 oldest competitors to the start today. # RIDER TEAM AGE 1 POZZOVIVO Domenico VBF 41y + 154d 2 GESCHKE Simon COF 38y + 50d 3 DE MARCHI Alessandro JAY 37y + 349d 4 THOMAS Geraint IGD 37y + 343d 5 GESINK Robert TVL 37y + 337d 6 CLARKE Simon IPT 37y + 289d 7 WOODS Michael IPT 37y + 203d 8 CARUSO Damiano TBV 36y + 203d 9 SWIFT Ben IGD 36y + 179d 10 PASQUALON Andrea TBV 36y + 121d 11 MEZGEC Luka JAY 35y + 310d 12 SERRY Pieter SOQ 35y + 163d 13 LAENGEN Vegard Stake UAD 35y + 85d 14 JANSSENS Jimmy ADC 34y + 338d 15 TRENTIN Matteo Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 Who's most likely to join the GT Trilogy Club ? Certainly Tadej and Jakobsen seem the most likely. Calmajeane and Lutsenko are longshots. I'm wondering in Tadej gets a big enough lead, will they allow Majka to ride for a stage win ? Riders that can complete GT stage trilogy List of riders that can complete the trilogy of a stage win in each grand tour. # Rider Giro Tour Vuelta 1 POGAČAR Tadej - 11 3 2 ALAPHILIPPE Julian - 6 1 3 JAKOBSEN Fabio - 1 5 4 MAJKA Rafał - 3 2 5 BARDET Romain - 3 1 6 CLARKE Simon - 1 2 7 WOODS Michael - 1 2 8 CALMEJANE Lilian - 1 1 9 LUTSENKO Alexey - 1 1 Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 That was a tough 1st Stage of any bike race. Tomorrow will be even harder. Loads of podium favorites failed today. To many to mention. I really thought Tadej had a shot at going wire to wire in Pink. I was wrong. Lillian Calmejane almost made a fool of me by coming close to winning. I was rooting for him despite my prediction. Hopefully he does join the GC Trilogy Club. Schachmann put in a nice attack on the final climb. He almost made it as well ,finishing second. Two National Champs and a gutsy gamer sprinting it out for the Stage win What a Sprint by Narvaez. A bullet of a Sprint and he even had time to sit up and celebrate. Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 Tadej can’t help himself. He wins the mountain top finish yesterday to take the lead and then attacks on the run in to the sprint finish and almost pulls it off. He needs to calm down. This thing is three weeks and he has to turn around and do it again in another month. Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 7 Author Share Posted May 7 Stage Three had an expected result, the Sprinters had their day, but it came about in an unexpected way. Fifty k's of the peloton riding piano, and I mean easy. Guys were eating and joking. Finally, Lillian Calmejane rolled away from the peloton a few k from the climb. We're not talking a blistering attack here. I'm talking he literally rode slightly faster. For whatever reason he drew out Davide Ballerini and they had a chat on the way to the top. Calmejane did ease across for the KoM points then they coasted back into the Peloton. At the first sprint, there was a brief clamor of sprinters and their lead outs, then they kept going. Twenty three guys formed a break, mostly the Sprinters and the Lieutenants. It lasted until the next Sprint, then the Peloton caught them shortly after. At the 3rd Sprint with a Bonus at the top of a climb, the GC boys came out briefly settled affairs and retreated to the peloton. Now it gets unusual. There was a short sharp climb about 5 k's out. Near the top an EF rider attacked amd got a gap. Then things went sideways. Tadej attacked to close the gap and G followed. For the next 3k's Tadej and G held a decent gap on the chasing sprinters until they were caught in the final 300 meters. The Sprinters did have their day, but not until Tadej and G came oh so close to stealing a march. 1 Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 Organizers of the Giro threaten to kick current leader Tadej Pogacar out of the race, over the color of his shorts while he wears the pink jersey. Just when you think this sport couldn’t be any more ridiculous. Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaztecs Posted May 7 Author Share Posted May 7 On 5/7/2024 at 11:51 AM, thelawlorfaithful said: Organizers of the Giro threaten to kick current leader Tadej Pogacar out of the race, over the color of his shorts while he wears the pink jersey. Just when you think this sport couldn’t be any more ridiculous. Why ? I thought he was wearing all pink ? Quote "We don't have evidence but, we have lot's of theories." Americans Mayor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawlorfaithful Posted May 7 Share Posted May 7 On 5/7/2024 at 1:58 PM, Spaztecs said: Why ? I thought he was wearing all pink ? It’s like some maroon or black color. Not the rose pink of the leader’s jersey. Bad fashion is a crime in Italy, I guess. 1 Quote We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
