Stage 3: Why we love the Giro.
Taco’s balls might be enormous, but they’re aero.
I think a lot of teams were playing really conservative for that final hill and not putting their guys out in the wind unless they had to and just misjudged it. Once it got to the flats Bora / Cofidis / UAE were all pulling turns, and should have been able to reel him in by the 1 minute / km rule, but either didn’t have the juice, or Taco had the sauce.
Has he said he would support Almeida? The reports I’ve seen had them down as co-leaders.
Not sure that chasing intermediate sprint time bonus is a big deal either way, seemed like he just saw the opportunity when the break was caught and went for it.
Up until very recently both Evenepoel and the team managers have confirmed that Almeida would be the team leader at the Giro, as Evenepoel has come from a injury, hasn’t raced yet this season, and it’s the first Grand Tour of his career.
It´s confirmed that Almeida will leave the team after the season… May not matter much, but historically has not improved a riders standing in the team. But I guess it comes down to who has the better legs. Impossible to tell at this stage.
Still a long way to go to see whether Remco has the legs for a 3 week Tour, but Almeida’s chances took a huge blow today. ~4 minutes down on most of the GC favourites.
Bernal looked pretty punchy today, looks much more like the rider he was in 2018-19 than what we saw in 2020. And nice to see Dombrowski finally get a big win!
Some of the outside GC guys took pretty big hits today…Sivakov, Hindley, Nibali, etc. They will now need to ride support or seek out stages (Nibali).
Yates lost a handful of seconds, but we’ll need to see if it was because of the conditions or fitness. Weather was obviously crap, so may not be a big deal.
Ciccone has been active the last 2 days…good to see him finish with the main GC guys today.
Outstanding stage for Dumbroski…finally.
Wonder if Yates also had 2018 at the back of his mind. It was burning matches attacking on these sort of finishes to grab a few seconds that arguably ended up costing him minutes in the last week in that Giro.
was thinking wtf is landa doing. Paid off a bit when the others followed him and they were able to pace together and gap yates and co. Could also be one of those ‘ride into form’ type of days they always talk about. Might be one of those days that we look back at in 3 weeks and speculate about.
Great win for Dombrowski, glad he was able to get one, pretty wild that he’s been in the pro tour that long without a win in Europe. Proving himself to be a valuable assistant to tadej come july!
Also, very good to see Bernal with some spring in his pedal stroke. Really hoping this is a sign that his back will cooperate and we’ll get to see him on good form.
I read that Dombrowski is now coached by Jim Miller. I wonder if some of San Millan’s ideas have also rubbed off?
Jeez. 5th day, already 3 GC contenders out.
Who’s out?
Today wasn’t a good day. I hope Superman is okay. Bummer of a birthday for Joe.
Yesterday Almeida lost too much time to be still in contention, today Sivakov was swooped of his bike by a tree and then Landa had a pretty bad crash. Looked like he abandoned the race altogether.
Oh and Nibali also lost too much time yesterday, although I don´t think many people considered him a GC contender in the first place (no offense to him lol)
Feeling for Mikel Landa. Hope he recovers for another of the grand tours this year. Also a shame Joe Dombrowski crashed on his birthday… that’s life!
On a side note, Bernie Eisels ramblings have become a constant nuisance/comedy session. During last years Giro he was usually so incoherent that I just laughed through his summaries. Funny that Chris Horner caught on to his idea yesterday. Priceless comment by Chris “should we just set up a picnic and some showers there?” 
although his passion shows and he is a nice chap - how the hell is he getting a single second of air time? He’s just all over the place and is interrupting himself mid-sentence with completely different topics. 
What’s up with Cycling News’ website today? Any other suggestions? At least I can’t get on it to see the live blog and the Giro’s blog just doesn’t feel the same. Can’t watch live…
Man, Mahoric is just drilling it today…Bahrain-Victorious coming out swinging after losing Landa yesterday.
And Ganna is just ripping off legs in the peloton…
What miserable weather.
holy crap, that team car just bumped a rider up on to the hood and almost ran them over.
Damn. That was so messed up.
OMG…Mader is gonna get caught right before the line…AGAIN!!!
Edit: Nope…he is going to make it! Good for him.