Giro over, Zipoli won...
Not a great Giro, not a great win either, thought it was a rather uninteresting, boring race.
Calimero, big favorite with Flynn, but the problems already started at the Etna stage. His sitter offline right after Zipoli siebed, people in his office, lost 2' that day and was already not that clear a favorite anymore, the 60 TT guys like Malori and also to a lesser degree Montgomery getting close. Nothing major happened from then on, Torres winning the mountain stages, early form, I had expected Kearney there, would have make sense to have him in top form early, to have him less strong to be more effective puller for Flynn later on. Malori with Mercatone, his old problem continues, he just relies on following, not covering or defending. And at this point he could hope to win it by riding defensively against Montgomery and Zipoli, while trying to get the necessary seconds he still needed against and get the necessary time against Flynn (somehow). Of course his team is not good for that either, but some more effective defensive riding certainly would have helped. Next in line Montgomery, who had the team, but not the spirit to attempt to dislodge the nominal favorites at that point.
Bormio stage: Donkey goes early, Malori follows, since that made was highly unpractical for Zipoli, he made tempo himself until Malori was siebed. Uppdal with 100 form managed to hang on, but barely. He should just have stayed in the peloton and ride with Landa. Since I was gone, Calimero then would have had reason to ride anyway, big danger for Calimero was always the Donkey sieb that dropped him, with that gone he wasn't going to lose much time to his opponents. Following Uppdal there made no sense for Malori, he did it anyway, and lost the Giro there, after being siebed by Zipoli he was then attacked and dropped at the top of Umbrail. Again, ride defensively and go in tempo there, even if dropped by sieb, due to the low energy, he wouldn't lose as much as he did. But no, no covering, attack, dropped and then tempo some time later..
So now it's Flynn vs Montgomery. And Calimero off again in the deciding moments, Donkey is let go with Sax and Garita, clear that he attacks. He does, nobody but FL follows Uppdal, Karanka tries Zipoli.. Nobody tries to keep Garita and Sax close, nobody follows them. Just pure riding to lose really. There were 2 teams with clear interest not to let Sax/Garita go, Calimero and Rasmussen. Calimero had to go off, 30 km +, well, unlucky yes, but at the same time you need to put in a guy to cover attacks in those cases. Rasmussen did some green tempo for a little while... Anyway, that was it, end of the day the GC favorite was Zipoli, shouldn't happen. Everybody just decided to lie down that stage, even Lula with Karanka (who otherwise DID try at least, sad to say Flynn did little to use his team, Malori and Montgomery never did anything at all (almost), seemed they wanted the win served like I got it served then
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Piancavallo, dead team, really wanted the stage but well, no chance really, team to dead from the day before. And since Asiago was going to be hard, couldn't kill the team completely. Still killed it more than I should. Asiago I really could have lost the Giro again, I was very open to attacks, FL did try a bit, but since I was going to cover him after it became clear that Rasmussen was banned, he didn't have a chance. Flynn and Karanka could have had theirs. But ok, GC placements still in play, so they fortunately all concentrated a bit on that too.
Not a great win as I said, got it offered for no reason on one stage when everybody decided winning the Giro wasn't their priority, but ok, a deserved win in the sense that I at least showed some passing interest in the GC. The attack that normally can't work in any group was there for the mountain jersey too. After the jersey chasing moron Torres wasn't on AGAIN that day, decided to now really try to go for that too. Otherwise he really could have had it, not much interest in that, especially since it's now blue and not green anymore. And red at RSF. But ok, off, then I go and get it, combine GC with mountain jersey, expecting the GC attempt to fail miserably, but getting the mountain instead.
Have to give props to Karanka though he did try, he would have deserved it. Not Flynn (being offline wasn't all there is to it, using offline settings is a possibility), not Malori (tempo to defend your chances is a tactic that kind of makes sense) not Montgomery (wait for others to collapse without even trying to get them to collapse). Kadyrkhanov who ended up second... for a long time he really wasn't in the GC at all, and there was an attempt on the last day, so ok, would have been a deserved win too.
2 stage wins, the Donkey clearly hoped for more. The 5 I was promised with Zipoli seemed a bit much anyway, somebody with early form was going to take many, as it happened, but hoped to get 2 with Zipoli, Piancavallo for sure, hopefully Ortisei. 1 Zipoli one Farkas, not enough really, but ok, got the Giro win instead, so I shouldn't be complaining. Still am complaining because in the end it wasn't an interesting Giro. The parcours clearly didn't help, Etna-Blockhaus-Oropa-Piancavallo, 4 times just a mountain at the end (yeah, stuff ahead sometimes, but most of the time not dangerous). Then the group small. Not much of interest going on most days. I'd rather have won the Fleche Wallonne than the Giro. But ok, since I only manage to win stuff when everybody conspires to ride as badly as they can, I get to win stuff like this, not when I need to do simple tasks like riding for Zipoli like in the Fleche...
Let's hope for a better Giro next time. But the Donkey is seriously thinking if maybe it's him... maybe it's time to stop with climbers and buy what I so far thought were uninteresting boring riders, some Hubers, some 80 climbers wih 75 TT, and see if it gets more interesting again then.