GIRO’22 BREAKDOWN: Let’s go to the High Mountains!

Race breakdown: As the 2022 Giro d’Italia approaches its crucial third week and the high mountains, Spencer Martin analyzes “what we know about the Giro d’Italia painting”. So far the GC riders have lost and won time in the Italian Grand Tour.

Giro Mountains – Here we are!

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What we know about the picture of GC Giro d’Italia, which is heading to the High Mountains
As the Giro d’Italia begins to complete its long early block, mostly sprint and transition stages, and enters its second and much more serious phase, with the exception of excluding Simon Yates from the GC competition after his fall in Stage 9, we are still no I can’t see well who will win in the overall classification. In fact, the biggest takeaway so far is how tightly the top of the GC is still packed together, and how little we know about which rider will eventually become the overall winner if the clock stops in Verona at the final stage.

Lopez is still in pink

Top ten in GC:
1) Juan Pedro Lopez +0
2) Richard Karapaz +12
3) Juan Almeida +12
4) Ramen Barde +14
5) Jai Hindley +20
6) Guillaume Martin +28
7) Mikel Landa +29
8) Domenico Pazov +54
9) Emanuel Buchman + 1’09
10) Pel Bilbao + 1’22

The toad is waiting in its wings

GC filtered table:
Juan Almeida +0
Richard Karapaz +0
Ramen Barde +2
Jay Hindley +8
Guillaume Martin +16
Mikel Landa +17
Damenik Pazov +42
Emanuel Buchman +57
Pel Bilbao + 1’10
Alejandro Valverde + 1’11
Timen Ahrensman + 1’15
Vincenzo Nibali + 2’52

Almeida heads for pink

Looking at the GC standings, one thing I missed after the first real finish at the top in stage 9 is how happy the UAE and Almeida are that at the last kilometer the speed ahead stopped to allow Juan Pedro Lopez to hold on to Maglia Rosa for at least another week. Had he fallen out of the lead in the race, Karapas would not have gone for the bonus on time offered in Stage 11, and Almeida would have found it difficult to control the race through what would be monotonous and exhausting the second week of racing. But now the UAE Trek is acting as a puppet mode to hold the race together until Lopez collapses with the GC as soon as the race comes out into the high mountains in the third week.

Hindley won the stage but lost 20 seconds

Where time has been won / lost so far
The exercise that I find very useful to break through the media stories around the ongoing grand tour is to explore where each major contender has taken or lost time relative to each other.

1 stage
Karapaz +0
Almeida +4
Bard +4
Hindley +4
Martin +4

Stage 2
Almeida +0
Bardet +6
Karapaz +10
Landa +15
Hindley +16

Stage 5
Almeida +0
Karapaz +2
Bard +2
Landa +2
Hindley +2

Stage 9
Hindley +0
Bard +4
Karapaz +5
Almeida +10
Landa +10

Stage 11
Karapaz +0
Almeida +2
Bard +2
Landa +2
Hindley +2

After looking at the five stages in which the top contenders won or lost time, we see that while outside of the smart ride Karapas to make a front end time division in the start-up stage, the main contenders came to a standstill outside of TT and time bonuses . Almeida, thanks to his skill in the TT and participating in the intermediate sprint in Stage 5, advanced to the second half of the race along with the rest of the serious contenders for the GC or ahead of them.

Almeida watches Karapaz

Where time was won / lost regarding Almeida

Finish uphill:
Karapaz -4
Bard +0
Hindley +0
Landa +0

A test of time
Bardet +6
Karapaz +10
Landa +15
Hindley +16

Time bonuses
Hindley -8
Karapaz -6
Bardet -4
Landa +2

Although we still know shockingly little about how the GC will crack after nine days of racing (compare this to the Tour de France, where we often know everything), we have two main data points: the race against time Phase 2 and the summit conclude in Phase 9, tells us that there are no significant differences between the levels of fitness of Karapaz, Bardet, Landa, Almeida and Hindley.

This means that while there are major mountain stages and there are still time races left, cutting out time when you can (i.e. time bonuses) will be incredibly important. That’s why I was surprised to see Ineos Domestiques go through the intermediate sprint point and take away the time bonuses for the first two places from the team leader in Stage 9, and judging by their strategy change in Stage 11, the same conclusion was reached inside teams.

In fact, while the Giro has a reputation for wide racing where you don’t have to worry about lost seconds because significant time differences are possible in the high mountains, the difference between 1st and 2nd places overall has been incredibly close in recent six releases, and no rider won the overall standings by more than 90 seconds.

The third week of the Giro is always decisive

The time difference of the final GC between the 1st and 2nd 2021-2016.
2021: 89 seconds
2020: 39 seconds
2019: 65 seconds
2018: 46 seconds
2017: 31 seconds
2016: 52 seconds

This fact, combined with the extremely tough races so far, should tell us that the winning reserves will be incredibly small and that if anyone wants to beat Almeida in the overall standings, he will have to work very hard to get enough temporary cushion, to detain him in the last 17-kilometer stage of the 21st stage.

Toad chase bonus seconds

The road to victory will not be easy for Carapaz & Ineos
Although Karapaz and his team Ineos looked strong so far, and the 2019 champion is rightfully the top favorite in the betting markets, his inability to deliver the blow he and his team clearly wanted in the 9th stage, should cast doubt on his ability to knock out. open the gap he needs over Almeida.

In the mountains

The last 10 stages:
Stage 12: Parma – Genoa 202 km hilly
Stage 13: San Remo – Cuneo 150 km
Stage 14: Santena – Turin 147 km hilly
Stage 15: Rivarolo Canavese – Horse 178 km
Rest day
Stage 16: Salo – Aprika Mountains 202 km
Stage 17: SPonte di Legno – Lavarone 168km mountain
Stage 18: Borg Valsugan – Treviso 151 km
Stage 19: Marana Lagunare – Castelmonte 177 km hilly
Stage 20: Belluno – Pasa Fedaya / Marmolada 167 km of the mountain
Stage 21: Verona – Verona 17.4 km ITT.

In the third week there are five more major mountain stages, but with all the best riders looking at about the same level of ascents, no favorite should expect significant profits at these stages. Sure, a more open style of racing has allowed either inconspicuous riders and just unnoticed riders such as Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali and 2019 Carapaz, to get on the road and take minutes in the past, but that’s because they’ve come from so far that they got a long chain that the top five riders won’t give to each other until the end of the 2022 edition. If Almeida, Bard, Karapaz, Landa or Hindley want to spend time on others in the mountains, they will have to do it with the highest performance in watts per kilogram with a few lifts, which is not an easy task against the background of such fierce competition.

Given this type of racing with a small margin, if Almeida can just follow the movement on the ups, as it was in stage 9, it will be extremely difficult to shake. In addition, his natural kick at the end of the stages could allow him to get significant time bonuses on a few abandoned finishes uphill, which would have made it even more difficult for Karapas to accumulate buffer before the TT.

And that doesn’t even take into account a repeat of his third-week performance at last year’s Gira, where he was GC’s best driver in the last five stages (and that was before Almeida started working with Thaddeus Pogachar’s personal trainer Iniga San Million earlier this season).

Bard and Landa complicate matters

In addition, the presence of Bard, Landa and Hindley will complicate matters and help Almeida even more. As we saw in stage 9, when Bardet, Landa and Karapaz really got the lead, they found themselves in a dead end, which allowed Almeida, who was moving at his own pace, to win back.

It would also be foolish to reject Bardet and Landa as potential winners in the overall standings at this stage simply due to the fact that neither of them has ever won a grand tour. Landa and Bardet, both extremely talented riders, looked better than in recent years, and the lack of significant TT miles will give them a rare opportunity to win the overall title in the big round. And with the fact that Alejandro Valverde and Vincenzo Nibali performed surprisingly well in the 9th finish stage before the Blockhouse, as well as being far enough away that they could not be singled out from each break, the risk of a mountain raid in the third week is high. In fact, we’ve already seen how this strategy of “early break to make up for lost time and dare to chase” was successfully used by Guillaume Martin when Cofidis racer was able to get the net in two minutes on the weekend and ride he finished 6th overall. offset due to the jump in step 8.

All of this unites that although Ineos is still looking at control, they should be far from calm after what we saw during the first nine stages.

# Stay PEZ for all Giro d’Italia news: STAGE REPORTS, EUROTRASH, JOKE DAY JOKES and BREAKDOWN. #

See the most complete coverage live without ads Giro d’Italia 2022 at GCN +. In-depth and receive interactive surveys and quizzes, as well as racer profiles, race updates, results and more – as well as broadcast original and exclusive documentaries about bicycles. Watch it all with GCN + on any device.

# Spencer Martin is the author of the Bicycle Analysis Newsletter For Pelatan which breaks down the nuances of each race and answers common questions related to the performance of the team and the racer. Register now to gain full access to all available content and race division. #

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