Giro d'Italia 2013: An Overview & Team lists

The 2013 Giro d'Italia begins this weekend in Napoli as it makes it way down south to the 'toe' of Italy before turning around and heading north into the alps and across the border into France. The race will finish in the city of Brescia on the 26th of May.

The favourites for the maglia rosa have all won a grand tour which should ensure a top quality race and set the standard for grand tour riding in 2013. Ryder Hesjedal pulled off a surprise victory last year when he won the race by blitzing Joaquim Rodriguez on the final ITT stage. With the final stage a flat one a repeat of the excitement of last year seems unlikely. Vincenzo Nibali and Bradley Wiggins have both highlighted the Giro as a season goal. At the 2012 Tour de France which Wiggins won, these two went Mano-a-Mano with the now knighted Wiggins the victor. Cadel Evans was rather underpar in his Tour defence last year and will be keen to put in a good showing and reinforce his role at BMC as the top dog. Robert Gesink could challenge for a podium if he manages to avoid crashing which is becoming far too common for the Dutch rider. Sammy Sanchez likewise could finish on the podium but his time trialling isn't anywhere near good enough to challenge Wiggins or Evans.

2013 Liège–Bastogne–Liège Route & Profile

2013 La Flèche Wallonne Route & Profile

Amstel Gold Race Route

The Big Three Teams chances for Flanders

Omega Pharma-Quick Step: with Tom Boonen a three time winner of the Flemish monument but under an injury cloud in 2013, the Belgian team will have a few options throughout the race. Boonen seems unlikely to defend his title from last year with sub-par performances so far this season. He could provide key support to Sylvain Chavanel by launching an attack and setting up Chavanel for a counter attack if necessary. The Omega Pharma-Quick Step team is looking strong as they also have Dutch national champion Niki Terpstra up their sleeve. Boonen could decide that Paris-Roubaix is his goal this classics season and allow the other two to chase a win. A win might be too much in 2013 but a podium place is looking likely

BMC: The star team is similar to Sky in that there are several top riders but little cohesion in their racing. Philippe Gilbert won’t be lining up in Bruges but with Thor Hushovd andreg Van Avermaet the top riders for Flanders plus with Daniel Oss also racing on Sunday the team’s weakness could be its individual strengths. Alessandro Ballan was third last year but is still recovering from a broken leg with Hushovd taking his place as the ex-World Champion in the Flanders team. Van Avermaet has finished in the top ten at Flanders in 2008 and was fourth last year but due to the arrival of Hushovd and Gilbert has seen his chances diminished as the top classics rider. The team could afford for several riders to launch attacks throughout the race before the protected rider tries their luck in a counter-attack. A podium is likely but a win would be a surprise for the American Swiss team but time is running out for this squad to bring home a big win at the classics

Team Sky: with Ian Stannard, Geraint Thomas, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Matt Hayman and Bernie Eisel all racing this Sunday the team will have to decide mid-race who they choose to protect for a chance for the win. Stannard showed his form at Milan-San Remo and the team has been in Tenerife training for its March/April assault on the classics and they need to start winning some big one-day races. In general classifications Sky is killing it and has created the new template for success but this is yet to eventuate in the classics. A podium looks good but a win will have to wait with Paris-Roubaix possibly a better chance with surprise wins more common at Roubaix than Flanders.

2013 Milan-San Remo Route

The Season is back and in Full Flight

 Although racing gets underway in Australia on January 1st and is followed by regualr racing, Paris-Nice is still marks the season opener for road racing. It is the second World Tour stage race on the UCI programe but the first in Europe. Several other stage races have been held and last weekend saw the first of the semi-classics, one of which was snowed out, but the race to the sun brings out a level of excitment that the Tour Down Under, Tour of Qatar and Tour of Oman just doesn't yet generate.

Tour Down Under Stage 4

Sky will once again be defending the general classification lead that Geraint Thomas has over Tom-Jelte Slagter which is a slim 5 seconds. In a race where seconds determine placing in almost the top 30 riders the gc won't be shaken up today with Stage 5 to Old Willunga Hill still looking like the decisive stage. Today's race will be another chance for the sprinters and could be the day that Greipel wins his 13th TDU stage and becomes the first rider to have done so in the 15th edition of the race. The 126.5km stage begins in Modbury and contains just one big climb, Kersbrook Road on Humbug Scrub, after just 30kms but after that there are undulating roads but nothing dramatic. The final few kms are almost dead flat and will see Greipel, Goss and Kittel fighting it out for the win. Orica-GreenEdge has had a disappointing return to the TDU after Simon Gerrans overall win in last years edition and Goss looks good after finishing second on yesterday's stage. Last year Óscar Freire won the sprint but in 2010 it was Greipel who won in the Barossa Valley town.
 

Geraint Thomas leads the overall, climbers and sprint classifications but could lose his sprinters jersey to one of the fast men. The gc shouldn't really change at the pointy end but with Jack Bobridge tied for points in the KOM he may just try to take the lead in the polka classification. With Thomas wearing the ochre jersey, Bobridge will wear the Kom jersey and Slagter should be in the points jersey. This gives Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) a day in the young riders jersey or if Slagter wears the young riders jersey, Daniele Pietropolli (Lampre-Merida) will be in the blue points jersey. GreenEdge will have some joy with Simon Clarke in the aggressive rider jersey and RadioShack Leopard will once again be leading the team classification, continuing their team form from last year when they won the classification.

Course Map 

Course Profile

 

Team Sky 2012 Season in Review

When Team Sky announced its five year goals the aim to have a British rider on the podium in France wearing yellow sounded fanciful. Forget five, Sky and Bradley Wiggins had a dream year in which they completely dominated the Tour de France and racked up stage win after stage win. Mark Cavendish joined the team to once again team up with Wiggins after they rode Madison together. His season on the team started well but tensions came to fore with Cav unhappy over his lack of support and a dedicated lead-out train. He still snared three Tour stages but in 2013 Sky will be GC focused not only in July but have the squad to challenge for GC wins in every race they enter.

Radio-Shack Nissan 2012 Season in Review

During the 2011 Vuelta de España what had previously been rumour and private became public knowledge. There was to be a merger between two new but big teams. RadioShack which had been created to accommodate Lance Armstrong’s return to racing and the Luxembourg backed Leopard team joined forces for the 2012 hoping their union will bring about Grand Tour success and a successful classics and one day onslaught. Instead this was an annus horribilis with injuries and doping scandals engulfing the team with the future of ex-director and star Fränk Schleck to be decided in coming weeks. Andy Schleck was retroactively awarded the 2010 Tour de France and in 2012 was focused on winning the race on the road. Swiss maestro Fabian Cancellara was looking to recapture his form of 2010 and had looked good early in the season till he crashed out of Ronde van Vlaanderen. Despite the dysfunction of team management and underperforming rides, surprisingly there were ten team classification victories which were more than any individual rider. 

Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank 2012 Season in Review

The season for Saxo Bank begun in Argentina at the Tour de San Luis with Alberto Contador winning two stages. These stage wins would later be annulled as the CAS ruling was handed down in February which stripped Contador of his 2010 Tour de France and 2011 Giro d’Italia. He also lost his contract with the team and was given a further six month suspension leaving him unable to race until August. With Richie Porte leaving for Sky at the end of 2011 there was no direct internal replacement for Contador as a GC rider and as a result the approach for the season was one day races and stage wins. 

Omega Pharma-Quick Step 2012 Season in Review

In recent years Tom Boonen has had indifferent seasons on the road with limited successes. Several positive tests for Cocaine at the end of last decade raised questions of whether the Flemish star was still interested in competing. Podium places at Flanders and Roubaix in 2010 suggested the fire was still burning but 2011 yielded just two wins in the whole season. The collapse of the HTC-Highroad team and signing of several riders from the American team alongside and the new sponsor Omega Pharma joining the team 2012 was a chance to start a fresh not just for Boonen but for the entire team. 2011 was also a very lean year for the team who had just as many national championships’ wins as trade race wins. The star rider of the season was Boonen but the team had 15 different winners suggesting the changes over the off season had a positive effect for the Belgian team. 

Movistar 2012 Season in review

In 2011 the team which first entered the peloton under the name of Reynolds begun the next chapter in its long existence with a new title sponsor. Movistar replaced the Spanish bank Caisse d'Epargne which had sponsored the team since 2005. One of the team’s stars under the Caisse name and most successful Spanish riders of his generation was Alejandro Valverde. Valverde was implicated in Operación Puerto and after a protected legal battle with various courts and cycling bodies he received a two year doping ban backdated from January 1st 2010. Due to the successes of the Spaniard his team had promised a place on the team once his suspension had been served. With the ban ending in 2012 Valverde rejoined the team and rode the first World Tour race of the year as the team leader. Although the team name is different, with El Bala back in the fold in 2012 the changes in structure where to a degree made redundant by the return of the prodigal son. 

Lotto-Belisol 2012 Season in Review

With one of the most prolific sprinter on its books over the last few seasons, Lotto-Belisol weren’t going to struggle for wins in 2012. André Greipel has been one the most consistent sprinters in the peloton since 2008 and since leaving the Highroad team to join Lotto has continued his winning ways as the number one sprinter on the team. At Highroad there was a two way tussle between Mark Cavendish and Greipel with the Isle of Man rider the star sprinter. In his debut Tour de France last year Greipel took one stage win on Stage 10 showcasing his talent and skill as a sprinter as if it wasn’t known already due to his prolific winning ways. Knowing Greipel was a known quantity on the world’s biggest stage, the expectations upon the German would be even higher in 2012. Besides the German gorilla, Jürgen Roelandts chipped in with several wins as did Lars Bak in a season where the Tour was the highlight. Besides Greipel winning three stages, Jurgen Van Den Broeck finished fourth overall.

World Tour Licenses Awarded

The final World Tour licenses have been awarded with one shock decision. Team Katusha who have the UCI number one rider Joaquim Rodriguez on their books have been denied a license for next season. For a team which had a rider on two Grand Tour podiums along with several big wins across the season and finished third on the UCI World Tour team rankings will now be riding at a Pro Continental. The team had initially been listed along with 15 other teams which had met the sporting criteria for a license but now are unsure why they have missed out. The UCI have said that indeed Katusha do not know why they have missed out but will be formally informed in the coming days.

Katusha 2012 Season in Review

Grand Tour classification jerseys and stage wins, one day classics and the UCI World Tour win would be more than enough to suggest that Katusha had a standout 2012. However 2012 was close to Grand Tour dominance for the Russian team as Joaquim Rodriguez lost the Giro d’Italia on the final day and was in a commanding position until Stage 17 of the Vuelta de España when Alberto Contador pulled off an escape ride to snatch the win from his compatriot. Rodriguez was once again the UCI rider of the season as he repeated his 2010 antics as the highest ranked rider due to his best Grand Tour result and his first Ardennes classic win. For Katusha their suburb season may have been overshadowed by Sky’s dominance but 2012 will be a season the team can look back fondly upon. 

Lampre-ISD 2012 Season in Review

Lampre-ISD’s 2012 season was largely underwhelming with not a single World Tour win and will end the season with a cloud of uncertainty engulfing the team. With only three riders winning races in 2012 this was a poor season for a team that regularly wins Grand Tour stages and is noticed in the peloton for more than just their pink jerseys. Michele Scarponi who finished second on the road in the 2011 Giro d’Italia inherited the maglia rosa after Alberto Contador was stripped of his results from the 2010 Tour de France but ends 2012 winless and suspended by his team for his meetings with the disgraced Italian doctor Michele Ferrari. Compatriot Filippo Pozzato was recently given a six month suspension for meeting with doctor and Scarponi looks likely to receive at least the same sentence. A new sponsor and team name in 2013 could see a rejuvenated Lampre team who will also be riding Merida bikes but two investigations into doping practices could derail the team’s preparation or season next year. 

Ag2r-La Mondiale 2012 in Review

The first of the 2012 team reviews begins with Ag2r-La Mondiale who have been a stable of the peloton since 1992 but in the past few seasons their presence on the podium has diminished. With only a handful wins in 2012 Ag2r find themselves second last on the team classification in the World Tour standings. With Nicholas Roche and Sébastien Hinault leaving for greener pastures in 2013, next season will be on of change for the French outfit who have also brought in some exciting new riders to chase those elusive wins.

Contador wins his Second Vuelta de Espana

Alberto Contador wrapped up his fifth Grand Tour win on the streets on Madrid. The Spaniard won by 1:16 over compatriot Alejandro Valverde and showed the peloton he is back in business. Valverde snatched the  points classification off Joaquim Rodríguez as well as the combination classification on the final day. Joaquim Rodríguez seems to be making it a habit to lose jerseys on the final day. Simon Clarke became just the second Australian to win a Grand Tour KOM jersey after he secured the polka dots on Stage 20. The Orica-GreenEdge Vuelta didn't go particularly to plan with Alan Davis narrowly missing stage wins but Clarke's efforts more than make up for close finishes.

Final General Classification Standings at the 2012 Vuelta de Espana

Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank) 84:59:49
Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) + 1:16
Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha + 1:37
Chris Froome (Sky) + 10:16
Daniel Moreno (Katusha) + 11:29

Audacious Contador Takes Control

Alberto Contador make a successful break to win the stage and take over the GC from Purito. Contador had looked like a shadow of his former self after the months off the bike for his doping suspension. No matter how hard he tried, he seemed unable to shake off his competitors and ride away like he has so many times before.  Contador won his third Vuelta stage which just about ensures he will  ride into Madrid wearing red.