Cycling Update: Giro d'Italia 2016

The picture to the right tells the story of this Giro.  Coming into the race Vincenzo Nibali was the heavy favorite, but he seemed off out of sorts and going into stage 19 Steven Kruijswijk of the Netherlands held a comfortable 3:00 lead over Esteban Chaves (Col), 3:23 over Alejandro Valverde (Spa), and 4:43 over Vencenzo Nibali (Ita).  All four of these riders had been talked about as race favorites so it was good to see the big names showing up, but then in stage 19, well things sort of went wrong for Kruijswijk.  Let's do a quick run through of how we got to that point.

Going into the Giro the riders to watch according to cyclingnews.com were Vincenzo Nibali, Mikel Landa, and Alejandro Valverde.  Keeping an eye on Tom Dumoulin, Rigoberto Uran, Ryder Hesjedal, Esteban Chaves, Ilnur Zakarin, Domenico Pozzovivo, Steven Kruijswijk, and Rafal Majka.  One thing about all the grand tours is that usually one of these riders to keep an eye on makes a move up the ladder and surprises everyone.  Sometimes winning the thing like Ryder Hesjedal did back in 2012.  Keeping all that in mind let's walk through the stages looking at the GC standings.

Stage 1: Tom Dumoulin, Primoz Roglic, 0:00:06 Andrey Amador Bikkazakova, 0:00:08 Tobias Ludvigsson, 0:00:11 Marcel Kittel

Stage 2: Tom Dumoulin, Primoz Roglic, 0:00:01 Marcel Kittel, 0:00:06 Andrey Amador, 0:00:08 Tobias Ludvigsson

Stage 3: Marcel Kittel, 0:00:09 Tom Dumoulin, 0:00:15 Andrey Amador, 0:00:17 Tobia Ludvigsson, 0:00:21 Moreno Moser

Stage 4: Tom Dumoulin, 0:00:20 Bob Jungels, Diego Ulissi, 0:00:24 Steven Kruijswijk, Georg Preidler.  This was our first stage with any climbs and so you start to see the GC contenders take a bit more shape.

Stage 5: Tom Dumoulin, 0:00:16 Bob Jungels, 0:00:20 Diego Ulissi, Georg Preidler, 0:00:24 Steven Kruijswijk

Stage 6: Tom Dumoulin, 0:00:26 Jakob Fuglsang, 0:00:28 Ilnur Zakarin, 0:00:35 Bob Jungels, 0:00:38 Steven Kruijswijk.  This was the first summit finish in the Giro.  What you don't see here is something that surprised a lot of people which was Nibali losing time.  He had been sitting in 6th place just behind Kruijswijk, but he fell all the way back to 9th on this stage.

Stage 7:  Tom Dumoulin, 0:00:26 Jakob Fuglsang, 0:00:28 Ilnur Zakarin, 0:00:35 Bob Jungels, 0:00:38 Steven Kruijswijk

Stage 8: Gianluca Brambilla, 0:00:23 Ilnur Zakarin, 0:00:33 Steven Kruijswijk, 0:00:36 Alejandro Valverde, 0:00:45 Vincenzo Nibali.  A tough mountain stage we start to weed out the weaker GC contenders.  Dumoulin had a bad day and suffered for it.

Stage 9: Gianluca Brambilla, 0:00:01 Bob Jungels, 0:00:32 Andrey Amador, 0:00:51 Steven Kruijswijk, 0:00:53 Vincenzo Nibali.  The first time trial after the opening stage shook up the GC contenders a bit more.  Zakarin for instance fell all the way back to 11th over 2 minutes back now.

Stage 10: Bob Jungels, 0:00:26 Andrey Amador, 0:00:50 Alejandro Valverde, Steven Kruijswijk, 0:00:52 Vincenzo Nibali.  Another hilly stage this one saw the first of the big contenders quit the race.  Mikel Landa had to abandon due to illness.  He had not been riding well and so it came as no surprise.  He will probably come back and be team leader in the Vuelta a Espana.

Stage 11: Bob Jungels, 0:00:24 Andrey Amador, 0:01:07 Alejandro Valverde, Steven Kruijswijk, 0:01:09 Vincenzo Nibali.  Another hilly stage we saw another GC contender pull out due to illness, this being Tom Dumoulin.

Stage 12: Bob Jungels, 0:00:24 Andrey Amador, 0:01:07 Alejandro Valverde, Steven Kruijswijk, 0:01:09 Vincenzo Nibali

Stage 13:  Andrey Amador, Bob Jungels 0:00:26, 0:00:41 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:00:43 Alejandro Valverde, Steven Kruijswijk.  This was the first stage into the high mountains and when you look at the big GC picture anyone left in the top 15 at this point are only 5 minutes back and so stand a shot at winning the overall.

Stage 14: Steven Kruijswijk, 0:00:41 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:01:32 Esteban Chaves, 0:03:06 Alejandro Valverde, 0:03:15 Andrey Amador.  The queen stage and Kruijswijk, Nibali, and Chaves appeard to be the best in class.

Stage 15: Steven Kruijswijk, 0:02:12 Esteban Chaves, 0:02:51 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:03:29 Alejandro Valverde, 0:04:38 Rafal Majka.  The queen stage was followed by an uphill time trial.  Nibali's slip was a big surprise and Kruijswijk dominance set him apart as the man to beat.  Since the beginning of the blood passport program back in 2008 or so you simply don't see guys give up such big leads very easily.

Stage 16: Steven Kruijswijk, 0:03:00 Esteban Chaves, 0:03:23 Alejandro Valverde, 0:04:43 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:04:50 Ilnur Zakarin.  A stage tailor made for Valverde he and Kruijswijk put time on everyone else.  At this point with Nibali and Chaves already past their peak it appeared to be a concluded race.

Stage 17: Steven Kruijswijk, 0:03:00 Esteban Chaves, 0:03:23 Alejandro Valverde, 0:04:43 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:04:50 Ilnur Zakarin

Stage 18: Steven Kruijswijk, 0:03:00 Esteban Chaves, 0:03:23 Alejandro Valverde, 0:04:43 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:04:50 Ilnur Zakarin

Stage 19: Esteban Chaves, 0:00:44 Vincenzo Nibali, 0:01:05 Steven Kruijswijk, 0:01:48 Alejandro Valverde, 0:03:59 Rafal Majka.   Back into the high mountains for stage 19 and 20 Nibali knew this was his last chance and so he attacked early on to put pressure on Kruijswijk.  Kruijswijk was at this point had no teammates with him and was forced to chase Nibali on his own.  Anytime you can get the leader all alone it's a bad thing and Kruijswijk did the one thing he could not do he crashed.  You'll notice that Zakarin also disappeared off the leaderboard, he crashed as well.  Now the GC contenders looked totally different.  And though Kruijswijk did well to stay as close as he did it was a bad crash and so you knew he was done at this point.  It would likely be Chaves that would take home the win and if Nibali wanted to win he would have to attack early and hard and break Chaves.  All of this of course following the fact that Nibali just 3 stages earlier seemed completely done.  It helps though to have the strongest team, and this is what Nibali had going for him heading into stage 20.

Stage 20: Vincenzo Nibali, 0:00:52 Esteban Chaves, 0:01:17 Alejandro Valverde, 0:01:50 Steven Kruijswijk, 0:04:37 Rafal Majka.  Chaves cracked on the final climb and Nibali came from behind to take the lead.  It was an amazing feat.  As I said it is rare that big deficits are made up since the blood passport era began and in this case Nibali got lucky with the crashing of Kruijswijk and then Chaves just seemed to run completely out of steam.



Stage 21:  Vincenzo Nibali (ITA), 0:00:52 Esteban Chaves (COL), 0:01:17 Alejandro Valverde (SPA), 0:01:50 Steven Kruijswijk (NED), 0:04:37 Rafal Majka (POL), 0:08:31 Bob Jungels (LUX), 0:11:47 Rigoberto Uran (COL), 0:13:21 Andrey Amador (CRC), 0:14:09 Darwin Atapuma (COL), 0:16:20 Kanstantsin Siutsou (BLR), 1:32:56 Joe Dombrowski (USA) in 34th is top American.  Nibali revealed after the race that when he lost time on stages 15 and 16 he was suffering from a stomach ailment and had almost withdrawn from the race.