Men's Road Cycling UCI World Tour 2022 (Giro d'Italia)

[heywoodu 16,460]

2 hours ago, Dunadan said:

First cyclist to be taken to the hospital after he injured himself while trying to open the bottle on the podium I guess 

Still unclear whether or not he'll start tomorrow...

 

Not that that will affect his second street parade of the year in Asmara after this  

[heywoodu 16,460]

And yeah, that was a fantastic sprint! After he stayed in Van der Poel's wheel all day Saturday and basically made both of them lose by it, he stayed in Van der Poel's wheel again all day today but finished it a bit better  

 

Great stage, unfortunately followed by tomorrows annual borefest stage in the Po Valley  

 

Thursday will be good though (with a sad moment when the peloton passes the location of Wouter Weylandt's fatal crash for the first time since that day), good preparation for a tough weekend.

[heywoodu 16,460]

Girmay most likely won't start today

 

Damn, that is some anticlimax.

[heywoodu 16,460]

He has confirmed he won't start  

 

Also, Van der Poel said why he had to chase for a long time in the final yesterday: he had a sock with ice in his shirt to keep cool, but that fell and disrupted a part of his bike  

[Grassmarket 4,295]

54 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

He has confirmed he won't start  

 

Also, Van der Poel said why he had to chase for a long time in the final yesterday: he had a sock with ice in his shirt to keep cool, but that fell and disrupted a part of his bike  

Cynics might say  that he - or really, his team - is looking to leave the Giro early so that he can do the full Tour de France, of course, now that he is one of the hottest properties in global cycling.  I couldn't possibly comment. 

[LDOG 2,477]

I don't understand cycling customs. Why is winning a small portion of a race (a "stage") deserving of a podium and a bottle of champagne?

[Grassmarket 4,295]

41 minutes ago, LDOG said:

I don't understand cycling customs. Why is winning a small portion of a race (a "stage") deserving of a podium and a bottle of champagne?

Winning a stage in a Grand Tour is very prestigious, effectively one of the top 70 out of all the several thousands of UCI-graded races held globally every year.  Also, the champagne company is one of the sponsors.  As is the company making the model’s clothes, the rider’s hat, the podium backdrop etc etc.

[Federer91 3,381]

7 hours ago, LDOG said:

I don't understand cycling customs. Why is winning a small portion of a race (a "stage") deserving of a podium and a bottle of champagne?

Mostly everything about cycling is sponsors  I'm surprised they haven't given the riders WWE nicknames and let them use their real ones. 

 

You should look at it like a race within a race. Like in F1, you win individual races, but they lead to an overall Championship in the end. Single stage wins are prestigious, but of course winning the whole thing in the end is the grand prize.

[heywoodu 16,460]

18 hours ago, LDOG said:

I don't understand cycling customs. Why is winning a small portion of a race (a "stage") deserving of a podium and a bottle of champagne?

Because cycling, stage races at least, are made up of several individual races. There is of course the general classification at the end, which especially in terms of media exposure and prize money is the main thing, but that part is basically only for the strong climbers. There's plenty of other riders, with different specialties, who all have their chances in individual stages (not in the sense to give them something 'because otherwise it's unfair', but because a good stage race should consist of many different types of stages, from long and flat to short and mountaineous).

 

A podium makes sense, like described in the post above, a stage is kind of like a Formula 1 race, with the final classification being the championship. It's not really like in rally, where you have 5+ stages a day, and the whole rally is done in a few days. Stage wins are counted, but not specifically celebrated there.

 

The bottle of champagne thing...that's just sponsors  I mean, a podium does need something, because it's an actual win in a semi-separate race, but the bottles being so big is just a sponsor thing.

[heywoodu 16,460]

20 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

Cynics might say  that he - or really, his team - is looking to leave the Giro early so that he can do the full Tour de France, of course, now that he is one of the hottest properties in global cycling.  I couldn't possibly comment. 

That seems unlikely though. You never know, but considering his current shape, it'd be likely they wanted to keep him in the Giro if at all realistically possible.