STAGE 15: Castelrotto – Alpe di Siusi 10.8 km MTT – Sunday 22nd May 2016-05-21

dastardly00

It's Kruijswijk's to lose now I think.

We should all learn how to spell his surname off by heart now since he could be a GT winner :pac:

retalivity

I seem to remember kruijswijk having a few bad days in previous grand tours and losing minutes, a la Gesink.
Wouldnt see it as a foregone conclusion yet.

isitraining

Steven Kruijswijk

https://twitter.com/Eurosport_ES/status/734402228790779904 Love the lad who catches the bike!

neris

Inquitus wrote: »

Chaves 2min40secs down on GC, it's a long way back, even with the Alps to come, need a significant crack from Kruiswijk at some point to keep this interesting.

240 be tough but i bet orica be happy with a 2nd and a narrowing of the time. I think chaves could get time back on him he has a few good climbers in support aswell

Andre 3000

retalivity wrote: »

I seem to remember kruijswijk having a few bad days in previous grand tours and losing minutes, a la Gesink.
Wouldnt see it as a foregone conclusion yet.

He looked very strong last year until Landa, Contador and Aru upped the tempo and he couldn't keep up. As we saw, Contador and Landa were in terrific form and nobody in this Giro is near that level if I'm honest. The way he responded with ease to any attacks yesterday would hint he's as strong as anyone else. Nibali looks like he's goosed completely. Rest day coming just in time for him.

Inquitus

Rafal Majka

isitraining wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Eurosport_ES/status/734402228790779904 Love the lad who catches the bike!

And heads off down the mountain with it?

MPFGLB

Andre 3000 wrote: »

He looked very strong last year until Landa, Contador and Aru upped the tempo and he couldn't keep up. As we saw, Contador and Landa were in terrific form and nobody in this Giro is near that level if I'm honest. The way he responded with ease to any attacks yesterday would hint he's as strong as anyone else. Nibali looks like he's goosed completely. Rest day coming just in time for him.

Kruijswijk is at the same level as last year (he told Daniel Friebe)
Last year he lost several minutes in first week but was up with Contador & Astana in final week

I can't see him being passed unless he has a nightmare

I think fight will be for podium with Chaves, Nibali & Valverde

Nibali is not in top form ( well the form he was in a few years ago)
Valverde is in great form but he is not a rider for the high mountains at high altitude
Chaves is great but wonder if he will tire a little

Andre 3000

The Russian lads are getting an awful slating on social media and the CN forum. To be fair, yesterday was an awful draining stage for all the GC lads, anything or anyone decent could have had a great TT today if they had something in reserve from yesterday.

MPFGLB

Andre 3000 wrote: »

The Russian lads are getting an awful slating on social media and the CN forum. To be fair, yesterday was an awful draining stage for all the GC lads, anything or anyone decent could have had a great TT today if they had something in reserve from yesterday.

It was an awful draining stage for everyone

The GC guys are in the top shape of all riders and were protected for alot of the stage

And are the best climbers/TTers in the world

dastardly00

From Cyclingnews live text:
"Mechanical aside Nibali was already over 30 seconds down on Kruijswijk before he dropped his chain and then had to change bikes"

Andre 3000

MPFGLB wrote: »

It was an awful draining stage for everyone

The GC guys are in the top shape of all riders and were protected for alot of the stage

And are the best climbers/TTers in the world

I read the lad who won arrived in 24 mins after Chaves yesterday while he finished with the GC lads on Friday's stage. I think it's safe to say they targeted this stage.

El Caballo

dastardly00 wrote: »

From Cyclingnews live text:
"Mechanical aside Nibali was already over 30 seconds down on Kruijswijk before he dropped his chain and then had to change bikes"

Yeah but that gap was over 50 seconds farther down the climb. Nibali was reeling him in when the chain dropped.

at1withmyself

El Caballo wrote: »

Yeah but that gap was over 50 seconds farther down the climb. Nibali was reeling him in when the chain dropped.

The timing was wrong and the gap was over a minute when the mechanical happened

MPFGLB

Uran and Pozzovivo have had a nightmare Giro so far

But they can still do top 10

Joe Dombroski is begining to show the promise that was highlighted by his scores and caused SKY to sign him

Inquitus

Rafal Majka

Some thoughts on Chaves's chances.

Looking at the remaining stages and their composition, the number of flat sections between climbs, I am not sure Esteban has a strong enough team to allow him to take back 2 minutes, if he was in Astana or Movistar he might be able to shift kruijswijk on one of the penultimate climbs and bridge to a couple of team mates to help him across the false flats or valleys and then launch solo on the final climb. I think to win he needs to be reliant on Valverde or Nibali dropping kruijswijk and being able to leverage their team mates, but looking at form so far its hard to see kruijswijk being dropped by either of that pair. I'd love to see him win, but it looks a tough proposition for OGE to do the necessaries.

Andre 3000

The climbs to come are so brutal that one off day from Kruijswijk and Chaves has his chance.

dastardly00

Gazprom-RusVelo really pulled an unbelievable result out of the bag by managing to get two of their riders who have no pedigree in ITT to win and come fourth in the stage.

Pudsy33

Alejandro Valverde

Alexander Foliforov's win of the Grand Prix of Sochi was by virtue of an mountain time trial. He's not completely unheralded. More time trial pedigree that Roglic arguably.

Melodeon

Alejandro Valverde

MPFGLB wrote: »

The Eurosport girl who asks the questions ...asks some of the most boring questions ever

Can't help think if she looked Claire Balding she would never have gotten the job

In fairness to Laura, she's often interviewing people in her second (or third/fourth/etc!) language, sometimes in their second language.
She interviewed Vinokourov in French yesterday for example, which is neithers' native language, and we got a third-party voiceover running translation to English. Even my rudimentary Leaving Cert French picked up a few words and phrases that didn't get mentioned in the voiceover, so who knows how much nuance and detail was lost overall.
When she's talking to a native Spanish speaker in Spanish they can fairly rattle along, and the translation we get is very obviously an abridged version of what they're actually saying.

I think the somewhat stilted and awkward second/third/fourth language 'interviews' are as much an essential component of the summertime Eurosport Grand Tour viewing experience as the homo-erotic Sidi adverts, the pregnant Israeli lady in the transparent swimsuit, and Sean's wonderful Carrick-on-Flanders pronunciation of peoples' names.

neris

Melodeon wrote: »

I think the somewhat stilted and awkward second/third/fourth language 'interviews' are as much an essential component of the summertime Eurosport Grand Tour viewing experience as the homo-erotic Sidi adverts,

did u see the ad for the Cipollini bikes

godtabh

neris wrote: »

did u see the ad for the Cipollini bikes

Was there a bike in that ad?

Pudsy33

Alejandro Valverde

Yeah, the top 20 of a Russian stage race is mainly comprised of Russians, not really a surprise.

Look, I'm not saying I'm entirely happy with it. There is some footage going around, where he speeds past an AG2R rider at an ungodly speed, that made me raise my eyebrows. However, it's no more bizarre than Mat Hayman winning Paris Roubaix or Roglic suddenly becoming a fantastic TTer. If Ian Bowell had won there wouldn't be this much suspicion! If we don't give these guys the benefit of the doubt then we will all go nuts speculating any time anyone wins anything out of the blue.

Edit: and I see the post is gone

dastardly00

Pudsy33 wrote: »

Yeah, the top 20 of a Russian stage race is mainly comprised of Russians, not really a surprise.

Look, I'm not saying I'm entirely happy with it. There is some footage going around, where he speeds past an AG2R rider at an ungodly speed, that made me raise my eyebrows. However, it's no more bizarre than Mat Hayman winning Paris Roubaix or Roglic suddenly becoming a fantastic TTer. If Ian Bowell had won there wouldn't be this much suspicion! If we don't give these guys the benefit of the doubt then we will all go nuts speculating any time anyone wins anything out of the blue.

Edit: and I see the post is gone

Don't worry, I saw the post too

I think the video might be a písstake so I'm not taking it as being credible!

Brian?

Melodeon wrote: »

In fairness to Laura, she's often interviewing people in her second (or third/fourth/etc!) language, sometimes in their second language.
She interviewed Vinokourov in French yesterday for example, which is neithers' native language, and we got a third-party voiceover running translation to English. Even my rudimentary Leaving Cert French picked up a few words and phrases that didn't get mentioned in the voiceover, so who knows how much nuance and detail was lost overall.
When she's talking to a native Spanish speaker in Spanish they can fairly rattle along, and the translation we get is very obviously an abridged version of what they're actually saying.

I think the somewhat stilted and awkward second/third/fourth language 'interviews' are as much an essential component of the summertime Eurosport Grand Tour viewing experience as the homo-erotic Sidi adverts, the pregnant Israeli lady in the transparent swimsuit, and Sean's wonderful Carrick-on-Flanders pronunciation of peoples' names.

I agree. Laura does a fantastic job under fairly hard circumstances.