Velominati Super Prestige: Giro D’Italia 2013

Pink Ryder photo:REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

Twiggo is dreaming of a Giro-Tour double. He has sent out mixed messages about his Tour ambitions. Will he use the Giro as the ultimate Tour preparation or will be burn all his matches in May and hope he can find another pack for July? He has abandoned his successful 2012 Tour run-up strategy of winning every stage race he entered the previous spring. Now it’s the seclusion of Mount Doom of Tenerife, his coach and his watt meter his only competition. Team Sky is supporting Wig with a very strong squad, including superman, Kanstantsin Siutsou and with Cav no longer a teammate, it’s all the knights of the round table for Sir Twig.

Will the curse of the god-awful Astana kit continue to haunt non-Kazahk riders? Can Vincenzo’s Italian mojo overpower its powerful pale blue and yellow aura? Roman Kreuziger was finally able to win a big race once he shed that kit and pulled on one of Bjarne’s Saxo jerseys. Maybe it was more Bjarne and less jersey that made the difference.

Ryder gets no respect as the defending champion. His little dance at the end of Liége-Bastogne-Liége showed he is fit and ready for a fight. He can time trial, he can climb. Personally I have to back the local boy. And I always hate the overpowered, overwhelming favorite (read Team Sky here) in any race, unless that racer is Fabian Cancellara. No one can say Fabs has won a race this year surrounded with a team as strong as Sky’s. The Shack is just the Shack or a shack. Once Cancellara leaves for the Swiss “I AM” team, it’s lights out in the shack. Frandy, don’t forget to turn out ’em out when you leave.

If Cavendish wins the first day’s sprinter’s stage he will be in pink. He may be out of it after stage two, a team time trial.

But this is the Giro: crazy, unexpected, beautiful things can happen. The spinning wheels of fortuna are less predictable in Italy as they are in France in July. The betting window is now open. The complete start list is not yet available, an incomplete one is here and shall be updated soon. So sleep on your picks, wait for all the teams to make it official, unless you want to go with the obvious all Sky podium. The race begins Saturday so don’t Delgado away a Grand Tour opportunity.

[vsp_results id=”23343″/]

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

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View Comments

strathlubnaig says:

May 18 2013 at 8:36 am

Watching that finish, it looked like Nibbles gave Santambrogio the nod to go for the stage.
Buck Rogers says:

May 18 2013 at 8:40 am

@strathlubnaig

Watching that finish, it looked like Nibbles gave Santambrogio the nod to go for the stage.

Really hard to believe with the time bonuses and all but maybe he did. Hopefully not another Panani/COTHO Ventoux bit.
Mikael Liddy says:

May 18 2013 at 8:43 am

Cuddles came in at 33" down with & with the 12" bonification for Nibbles as well the gap is out to 1:26" by my calculations, Gesink came in around 3 minutes down with the rest of the Blanco squad.
Buck Rogers says:

May 18 2013 at 8:44 am

@Mikael Liddy

Cuddles came in at 33"³ down with & with the 12"³ bonification for Nibbles as well the gap is out to 1:26"³ by my calculations, Gesink came in around 3 minutes down with the rest of the Blanco squad.

I think that they are saying Gesink was over four minutes down.
ped says:

May 18 2013 at 8:45 am

@Buck Rogers

@strathlubnaig

Watching that finish, it looked like Nibbles gave Santambrogio the nod to go for the stage.

Really hard to believe with the time bonuses and all but maybe he did. Hopefully not another Panani/COTHO Ventoux bit.

Definitely a nod from il Squalo at the last corner letting Santa know he wouldn't contest the sprint
Buck Rogers says:

May 18 2013 at 8:47 am

@ped

@Buck Rogers

@strathlubnaig

Watching that finish, it looked like Nibbles gave Santambrogio the nod to go for the stage.

Really hard to believe with the time bonuses and all but maybe he did. Hopefully not another Panani/COTHO Ventoux bit.

Definitely a nod from il Squalo at the last corner letting Santa know he wouldn't contest the sprint

Cool. I love the honour and protocol in cycling. I will need to watch that.
frank says:

May 18 2013 at 8:52 am

Despite the weather and several riders losing time, there was not much change to the GC; Gesink dropped out of contention and Scarples fell further back as well, but the only big change to the overall is that Santambrogio took Gesink's spot in fourth.

Provisional Race Results
1. NIBALI Vincenzo

2. EVANS Cadel

3. URAN URAN Rigoberto

4. SANTAMBROGIO Mauro

5. SCARPONI Michele

Provisional VSP Standings
1. Blake (35 points)

2. Smithers (33 points)

3. mouse (28 points)

4. mbarston (28 points)

5. RedRanger (28 points)

6. Tobin (28 points)

7. Dufferin Sportif (28 points)

8. scaler911 (28 points)

9. MJ Moquin (28 points)

10. seemunkee (26 points)

11. Noel (26 points)

12. Rigid (26 points)

13. Mikael Liddy (25 points)

14. ped (25 points)

15. razmaspaz (25 points)

16. V-olcano (25 points)

17. frank (25 points)

18. leadout (25 points)

19. strathlubnaig (24 points)

20. Nate (23 points)

21. Mike_P (23 points)

22. gladoe (23 points)

23. Duende (23 points)

24. moondance (23 points)

25. Don Amedo (23 points)

26. Donnie Bugno (23 points)

27. Dino (23 points)

28. Daccordi Rider (23 points)

29. Alex (23 points)

30. il ciclista medio (23 points)

31. King Clydesdale (23 points)

32. Dashiell (23 points)

33. Mirko (23 points)

34. taon24 (23 points)

35. Russ (23 points)

36. dancollins (23 points)

37. Ron (23 points)

38. Chica (23 points)

39. pakrat (23 points)

40. DocBrian (21 points)

41. Gervais (21 points)

42. San Tonio (21 points)

43. stickyjumper (21 points)

44. Simon (20 points)

45. Bianchi Denti (20 points)

46. Sauterelle (20 points)

47. napolinige (20 points)

48. Patrick (20 points)

49. ramenvelo (20 points)

50. sehmis (20 points)

51. Souleur (20 points)

52. sprider (20 points)

53. gallilano (18 points)

54. Deakus (18 points)

55. Heihachi (18 points)

56. Skip (18 points)

57. the Engine (16 points)

58. CanuckChuck (16 points)

59. Harminator (15 points)

60. Nosyt (13 points)

61. Vernwitha_V (13 points)

62. Joe (11 points)

63. DerHoggz (11 points)

64. anotherdownunder (11 points)

65. VirenqueForever (11 points)

66. bderw (11 points)

67. R00tdown (11 points)

68. Steampunk (10 points)

69. kyle (10 points)

70. sthilzy (9 points)

71. piwakawaka (9 points)

72. torrefie (9 points)

73. Chris (9 points)

74. Facetious_Jesus (9 points)

75. sgraha (9 points)

76. pink (9 points)

77. Adrian (9 points)

78. Jhortua (9 points)

79. quanyeomans (9 points)

80. Lukas (8 points)

81. wiscot (8 points)

82. TomC (8 points)

83. imakecircles (8 points)

84. blue (8 points)

85. simonsaunders (8 points)

86. NoTubes (8 points)

87. Islandbike (8 points)

88. Bat Chainpuller (6 points)

89. Dr C (6 points)

90. TOM.NELS2120 (6 points)

91. Buck Rogers (6 points)

92. SimonH (6 points)

93. Tartan1749 (6 points)

94. Fausto (6 points)

95. PeakInTwoYears (6 points)

96. Al__S (6 points)

97. roger (6 points)

98. snoov (6 points)

99. brian (6 points)

100. asyax (6 points)

101. Blah (6 points)

102. Cyclops (6 points)

103. Gino (6 points)

104. Yannersan (6 points)

105. Franklin (6 points)

106. chrismurphy92 (6 points)

107. Erik (6 points)

108. margc (6 points)

109. Dan_R (6 points)

110. brad_the_dean (6 points)

111. la plaque (6 points)

112. freddy (6 points)

113. The Grande Fondue (6 points)

114. Benny (6 points)

115. girl (6 points)

116. zalamanda (6 points)

117. ChrisO (6 points)

118. Roberto Marques (6 points)

119. jeyrod (6 points)

120. Velodeluded (6 points)

121. m_demartino (6 points)

122. tony macaroni (6 points)

123. Benzo (6 points)

124. paolo (6 points)

125. minion (6 points)

126. Jay (6 points)

127. xyxax (6 points)

128. starclimber (6 points)

129. PT (6 points)

130. TBONE (5 points)

131. zeitzmar (4 points)

132. VeloVita (4 points)

133. ten B (4 points)

134. motor city (3 points)

135. The Goat (3 points)

136. Two Ball Billy (3 points)

137. 936adl (3 points)

138. RManneck (3 points)

139. eenies (3 points)

140. El Mateo (3 points)

141. graham d.m. (3 points)

142. el gato (3 points)

143. Geordi (3 points)

144. HeinrichHausslersHairstyle (1 points)

145. LA Dave (1 points)

146. eightzero (1 points)

147. JohnB (1 points)

148. unversio (1 points)

149. oneninefiveninesix (0 points)

150. brett (0 points)
LA Dave says:

May 18 2013 at 8:54 am

Gesink is done as is my VSP.

Down to 2 of the top 5 and neither in the right place....including my 5 pt penalty for swapping Evans in on the 1st rest day my calculations have me at a whopping 1 point. My only hope was that somebody could pull a miracle and drop Nibbles and Cuddles back down to 2nd and 3rd respectively, but Vincenzo made sure that was a pipe dream today - good for him.

Seems like there was some great racing up the final climb, wish we could have seen it.
LA Dave says:

May 18 2013 at 8:56 am

@frank

145. LA Dave (1 points)

My math is confirmed....
RedRanger says:

May 18 2013 at 9:07 am

holy Merckx! Im in the top 5!