S
Sonarrat
Guest
We've all heard by now of the Ukraine double in the Giro, with Serhiy
Honchar winning the ITT and Yaroslav Popovych taking third,
simultaneously taking the Maglia Rosa by 3 seconds over Honchar. And
we've all heard about Stage 4b of the Tour of Belgium being cancelled in
the wake of a major crash, apparently taking an American race of a month
ago as a precedent. Perhaps you cared about the re-emergence of Moreau
and the continued strength of elder statesman Ekimov, perhaps you
didn't. Here are a few other things I've kept my eye on...
Santiago Botero is actually hanging tough, much better than I thought
based on the first two days of the Bayern Rundfahrt. The past two
stages have been peppered with lots of climbs, six Cat. 1's in all, and
he stayed with the peloton, avoiding enormous splits. I would upgrade
him from a thumbs-down to a question mark at this point, to put it in
rough inhumane terms.
Looking at the two teams classificiations for the Giro d'Italia, I'm
quite surprised to see that Alessio-Bianchi is leading both of them -
the Trofeo Fast Team (aggregate time) and Trofeo Super Team (cumulative
points). But there it is, plain as day, even though no Alessio rider
has yet won anything in this Giro - be it a stage, an Intergiro sprint,
or a mountain climb. But with the combined talents of Andrea Noe',
Christian Moreni, Magnus Backstedt (whose Velonews blog is a joy to
read), Angelo Furlan, and a very strong Franco Pellizotti, it certainly
hasn't been for lack of trying. This is just solid, dogged tenacity at
work and I think it may pay off big by the end of this race.
-Sonarrat.
Honchar winning the ITT and Yaroslav Popovych taking third,
simultaneously taking the Maglia Rosa by 3 seconds over Honchar. And
we've all heard about Stage 4b of the Tour of Belgium being cancelled in
the wake of a major crash, apparently taking an American race of a month
ago as a precedent. Perhaps you cared about the re-emergence of Moreau
and the continued strength of elder statesman Ekimov, perhaps you
didn't. Here are a few other things I've kept my eye on...
Santiago Botero is actually hanging tough, much better than I thought
based on the first two days of the Bayern Rundfahrt. The past two
stages have been peppered with lots of climbs, six Cat. 1's in all, and
he stayed with the peloton, avoiding enormous splits. I would upgrade
him from a thumbs-down to a question mark at this point, to put it in
rough inhumane terms.
Looking at the two teams classificiations for the Giro d'Italia, I'm
quite surprised to see that Alessio-Bianchi is leading both of them -
the Trofeo Fast Team (aggregate time) and Trofeo Super Team (cumulative
points). But there it is, plain as day, even though no Alessio rider
has yet won anything in this Giro - be it a stage, an Intergiro sprint,
or a mountain climb. But with the combined talents of Andrea Noe',
Christian Moreni, Magnus Backstedt (whose Velonews blog is a joy to
read), Angelo Furlan, and a very strong Franco Pellizotti, it certainly
hasn't been for lack of trying. This is just solid, dogged tenacity at
work and I think it may pay off big by the end of this race.
-Sonarrat.
