Giro d'Italia Stage 7 - Grosseto - Fiuggi - *contains unmasked spoilers*

Darkglasses

This is the longest stage of this year's Giro by some way, at a massive 264km. As a result, it makes rating the course's suitability a bit of a challenge. If a large breakaway manages to stay from the start, there's a significant chance of it sticking. In addition the hilly final 50km will work more towards the likes of Philippe Gilbert, Michael Matthews and Simon Gerrans than say Viviani or Greipel. Luca Paolini has also been keeping his powder fairly dry so far, and will have his eye on tomorrow's stage certainly.

At the beginning however, many eyes will be on the Tinkoff starters, whether Contador will appear or not is still up in the air in truth. However with this stage giving the break something of an advantage, the win could really come from anywhere, and the odds reflect this.

Oddschecker: Matthews 6/1, Gilbert 8/1, Lobato 12/1, Felline 16/1, Modolo 14/1, Viviani 40/1, Greipel 33/1

TheBlaaMan

Contador is confirmed to start today http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-confirmed-to-start-giro-ditalia-stage-7 but it is surely over for his GC hopes? Getting through to the rest day on Monday may be the target, but with the Giros longest stage today and two fairly tough looking days on Saturday and Sunday, I would imagine that the shoulder is not going to last unless the other teams give him a very easy ride.

I would guess that another fall on the shoulder could be very serious for the long term and much like Froome continuing in the Dauphine ? only with the help of a TUE, it is questionable whether Contador should risk continuing in the race.


Stage 7 starts at 9:25am BST

Finish at around 4:12pm BST

Live video from *1:30pm BST

bazermc

a lumpy bumpy 264km with a dislocated shoulder - jaysus

godtabh

https://twitter.com/giroditalia/status/599123957820706816

Fair play

ThisRegard

bazermc wrote: »

a lumpy bumpy 264km with a dislocated shoulder - jaysus

It's not your traditional dislocation, it was one of those that pop out and straight back in by itself. But still, i imagine the tissue and muscle is very sore.

If Mel Gibson can pop his shoulder back in and kill all of South Africa's bad guys afterwards, a sore shoulder is nothing for Contador after his broken leg escapade from last year.

godtabh

I wonder will he get any pain relief?

D9Male

Good luck, Alberto. The Giro is beautifully poised now, so I really want him to avoid significant losses this weekend, and then come out all guns blazing in weeks 2 & 3.

D9Male

I think it will be a day for a break today. I can't see who will help OGE with the chasing. In fact, I think they might put a guy or two in the break themselves for the day off.

Everybody must be dog tired after the past six days.

Pudsy33

4 man break has 10 minutes. Long way to go

Inquitus

D9Male wrote: »

Good luck, Alberto. The Giro is beautifully poised now, so I really want him to avoid significant losses this weekend, and then come out all guns blazing in weeks 2 & 3.

Going to be hard tomorrow with an MTF if his shoulder popped out and in yesterday, riding out of the saddle wouldn't be possible you'd think, I did rotator cuff damage to my shoulder, didn't get any injections etc. but no hope I could ride out of the saddle the next day or week!

Fender76

Say what you may about Contador but he has proved himself to be a double hard bastard.. fair play to him... if an athlete in any other sport dislocated their shoulder they would be out of action for weeks... looong stage today and tough mountain stage tomorrow.. hope he can hang in there....

Inquitus

No time for convicted drug cheats myself.

Darkglasses

Fender76 wrote: »

Say what you may about Contador but he has proved himself to be a double hard bastard.. fair play to him... if an athlete in any other sport dislocated their shoulder they would be out of action for weeks... looong stage today and tough mountain stage tomorrow.. hope he can hang in there....

Inquitus wrote: »

No time for convicted drug cheats myself.

Moved to stage thread

death1234567

bazermc wrote: »

a lumpy bumpy 264km with a dislocated shoulder - jaysus

I doubt it's as bad as he is making out. Remember when he "broke" his leg in the tour and then he was away doing moto-pacing training and then re-appeared to win the Vuelta. He likes to overstate his injuries just like one Eldrick Woods.

Darkglasses

New head-height barriers at the finish

TripleMinor

Darkglasses wrote: »

New head-height barriers at the finish

Ye but now the riders have to avoid those idiots standing on the finish line :pac:

Pudsy33

Vicious headwinds today means the riders are going at 35kph average. That suggests the break is doomed and we are in for a late finish.

letape

death1234567 wrote: »

I doubt it's as bad as he is making out. Remember when he "broke" his leg in the tour and then he was away doing moto-pacing training and then re-appeared to win the Vuelta. He likes to overstate his injuries just like one Eldrick Woods.

If anything I would expect he would understate his injuries if staying in the race - he would want to minimise the perception of weakness to his competitors. Would be different if abandoning the race.

Darkglasses

Avg speed has dropped below 35kph now. Long day to come, at least 30-40 minutes behind schedule.

Live pictures starting shortly.

Fender76

Are the bunch taking it handy out of respect for Contador I wonder..?

REBELSAFC

Darkglasses wrote: »

New head-height barriers at the finish

They don't look too different to yesterdays barriers!!!!!!

Lusk_Doyle

Inquitus wrote: »

No time for convicted drug cheats myself.

Is convicted the correct term? It wasn't a criminal case.

Darkglasses

REBELSAFC wrote: »

They don't look too different to yesterdays barriers!!!!!!

Yeah I should correct that, the Colli crash happened before those barriers started, that confused me.

Daroxtar

You'd think some legislation would be in place to make it an offence to interfere with a sporting event. Plenty of serious accidents have been caused by clowns getting caught up in riders. Give them a €1000 fine / ban from attending events again. Make them responsible for their actions

ThisRegard

Fender76 wrote: »

Are the bunch taking it handy out of respect for Contador I wonder..?

Guys chatting on Eurosport about it before hand said they probably will. Not because it's Contador, but out of respect for the leaders jersey.

dastardly00

REBELSAFC wrote: »

They don't look too different to yesterdays barriers!!!!!!

Darkglasses wrote: »

Yeah I should correct that, the Colli crash happened before those barriers started, that confused me.

So I wonder if the head-height barriers are now in place further away from the finish line, eg. 100m before the line instead of the last 50m?

MPFG

Contador is always the main man in any race...no matter the reason

Out of the saddle and climbing at the moment so cannot be too bad

Would have preferred if Aru and/or Porte were ahead of him....IMO would make for better racing

Darkglasses

Not a classic this. 49km to go, gap down to 4'34. Contador doesn't look 100% but he has been riding out of the saddle fairly regularly.

dastardly00

It'd be great if a team bus got stuck under the finish line and they had to move the finish line closer...

Darkglasses

dastardly00 wrote: »

It'd be great if a team bus got stuck under the finish line and they had to move the finish line closer...

About 40km closer would be fine with me

neris

nippo vini fantini aint the best of luck. Vini Fantini sounds like a character in Goodfellas

dastardly00

And we finally have less than 10km to go.

afatbollix

Ara will ye stop with how slow its going.

When was the last time you did a 300km ride?

Darkglasses

afatbollix wrote: »

Ara will ye stop with how slow its going.

When was the last time you did a 300km ride?

Did you enjoy watching today's 7.5 hour stage? Do you not think maybe it could have been shortened a fair bit for everybody's benefit?

REBELSAFC

Darkglasses wrote: »

About 40km closer would be fine with me

This stage shows why Grand Tour stages should be 160km MAX. It would lead to much more interesting and exciting racing

neris

i only got the last 40km of that, what a bore fest

retalivity

I thought the reasoning would be to tire a few out before the lumpier stage tomorrow...

afatbollix

Darkglasses wrote: »

Did you enjoy watching today's 7.5 hour stage? Do you not think maybe it could have been shortened a fair bit for everybody's benefit?

I'm paid to watch it and it only over ran by 15 minutes so didn't take them much longer than usual.

Darkglasses

afatbollix wrote: »

I'm paid to watch it and it only over ran by 15 minutes so didn't take them much longer than usual.

I don't mind it over-running even slightly. It was just boring racing and un-necessarily long stage. Tom Dumoulin put it best.

https://twitter.com/tom_dumoulin/status/599239834759262208

funnights74

Tomorrow should be better, mountain top finish, a real test for Contadors injury. I expect fireworks from Aru/Astana and Porte/Sky.

ThisRegard

neris wrote: »

i only got the last 40km of that, what a bore fest

I manually set my sky box to record it as I didn't want the full program recorded. The bloody thing stopped with 2.1k to go.

Darkglasses

Luca Paolini's pedalling style leaves something to be desired

ThisRegard

We used to do that as kids when we had no working brakes on our jalopies in order to stop.

Darkglasses

ThisRegard wrote: »

We used to do that as kids when we had no working brakes on our jalopies in order to stop.

I'm kind of amazed that his cleat didn't do a number on the spokes, but clearly something's happened to his tyre in the incident

ThisRegard

Yeah, can't work out what or why he's doing it, but he was risking his cleat wrecking his spokes as you say, or worse, his foot getting dragged in.

dastardly00

afatbollix wrote: »

I'm paid to watch it and it only over ran by 15 minutes so didn't take them much longer than usual.

You're paid to watch it??

REBELSAFC

After watching the highlights last night (ie the last 5k) it looked like brilliant tactics from Lampre. It looked like Gerrans tracked Modolo and by the time he realised he was tracking the "wrong" Lampre rider it was too late

MPFG

I think Philippe Mauduit (sacked by Tinkov for not being hard enough in his approach to results) has made a big difference at Lampre