Cycling Update: The Giro and the US Pro Championships

For the last few years all of the grand tours have been very close races. This seems to be the norm now that doping is being so aggressively monitored. Anyhow there are always exceptions to the rule and this years Giro d'Italia was a very boring affair. Sad to say it wasn't due to an overwhelming performance from race winner Vincenzo Nibali, but more due to a lack of competition. The defending champion Ryder Hesjedal got sick as did Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins. Hesjedal, Wiggins, and Nibali were the top picks coming in and with those two out of the way Nibali made fairly easy work of it.

It was also an odd Giro in other ways. Mark Cavendish seemed to have no one who could even attempt to stop him from winning sprint finishes and there were issues with snow throughout the mountain stages. In fact one of the mountain stages was cancelled due to snow.

All in all the real story coming out of this Giro is what will happen with Wiggins now that he had to bail so early on the Giro.  There is already strife in his team over who will lead the team in the Tour de France and this will only add to that strife.  It was expected that Wiggins would give his all in the Giro and Chris Froome would lead the team in the Tour.  Well now Wiggins will be at full strength for the Tour and he'll be pressuring to be allowed to be team leader.  Meanwhile Froome has made it clear that he thinks he's better than Wiggins and would have won the Tour last year if he wasn't riding in support of Wiggins.  This could make for some fun drama at the Tour.

Giro d'Italia Final Standing

1 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 84:53:28
2 Rigoberto Uran Uran (Col) Sky Procycling 0:04:43
3 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:05:52
4 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:06:48
5 Carlos Alberto Betancur Gomez (Col) Ag2R La Mondiale 0:07:28
6 Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) Lampre-Merida 0:07:43
7 Rafal Majka (Pol) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:08:09
8 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 0:10:26
9 Mauro Santambrogio (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 0:10:32
10 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) Ag2R La Mondiale 0:10:59
49 Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin-Sharp 1:39:17

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Meanwhile in the United States we just held our national time trial and road championships.  Sad to say the top US men's riders weren't present and so it made for a bit of an uninteresting affair.  Sad to say this is where we are with cycling right now in the United States.


Women's Time Trial
1 Carmen Small (Specialized-lululemon) 0:42:37.70
2 Kristin McGrath (Exergy TWENTY16) 0:00:01.25
3 Alison Powers (NOW and Novartis for MS) 0:00:12.42
4 Evelyn Stevens (Specialized-lululemon) 0:00:41.14
5 Jade Wilcoxson (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) 0:00:44.53

Women's Road Race
1 Jade Wilcoxson (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) 2:46:39
2 Lauren Hall (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) 0:00:11
3 Alison Powers (NOW and Novartis for MS)
4 Kristin McGrath (Exergy TWENTY16)
5 Jacquelyn Crowell (Exergy TWENTY16) 0:00:17

Men's Time Trial
1 Thomas Zirbel (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) 0:38:16.03
2 Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing Team) 0:00:17.28
3 Nathan Brown (Bontrager Cycling Team) 0:00:41.10
4 Lawson Craddock (Bontrager Cycling Team) 0:00:41.88
5 Chad Haga (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) 0:00:46.07

Men's Road Race
1 Freddie Rodriguez (Jelly Belly Cycling p/b Kenda) 4:06:56
2 Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing Team)
3 Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthcare)
4 Benjamin Jacques-Maynes (Jamis Hagens Berman)
5 Gavin Mannion (Bontrager Cycling Team)