Giro d'Italia Stage 8 - Fiuggi - Campitello Matese *contains unmasked spoilers*

Darkglasses

First mountain stage of the Giro, and presumably the first major scrap between the GC contenders. There'll be no kid gloves with Contador tomorrow, either he's fit or he's dropped. It's a constant up and down with rain expected, no flat sections of note, so his shoulder will be tested to the absolute limit. It'll the winding descents with all the turning and g-forces followed by his stand-up bobbing climbing style, and expected wet roads will only increase the danger. All in all, he looked pretty ok today. I expect a mix of his usual approach of downplaying his own chances and his mental resolve will get him through tomorrow with minimal losses if any. He may even be first to attack.

The gradients are really not too severe tomorrow, the first climb is a whopping 30km, but only averages at 4-5%. It also comes quite early, with 105km left to go after the summit, so it should not be a divisive challenge. The final climb will be the battleground, 15km and an average of around 8.5%. A sting, but not a killer.

Oddschecker Aru 5/2, Porte 9/2, Contador 7/1, Pirazzi 22/1, Uran 22/1, Hesjedal 25/1

Darkglasses

Damp but not heavy rain at the moment. Roads will be greasy.

https://twitter.com/BMCProTeam/status/599479523332194304

Brian?

Before Contador's crash this stage would have been expected to be just a skirmish. It could be decisive though.

Imagine the pain involved for Bertie today. He can't comfortably take a rain jacket off on the bike. It hurts to reach for good. So he has to do all of that over 2 decent sized climbs interspersed with tricky descents.

My prediction is he loses a minute plus to Aru and Porte today.

qwabercd

Darkglasses wrote: »

Damp but not heavy rain at the moment. Roads will be greasy.

https://twitter.com/BMCProTeam/status/599479523332194304

Greasy

Darkglasses

Live pictures have started, been a really fast start and there are splits already.

Darkglasses

Contador took two bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint.

Darkglasses

Main breakaway group is Betancur, Pellizotti, Bongiorno, Samoilau, Reichenbach, Niemec, Intxausti, Finetto, Danielson, Zakarin and Vandewalle chasing Kruiswijk the sole leader.

Really strong group!

omri

If Contador is going to lose time in this stage due to his injury do you think this will cost him pink jersey at the end of the Giro ? Maybe it's better for him to go through this stage allowing for Aru and Porte to take some lead now until the rest day and hopefully if he recovers go on attack then ?

Darkglasses

Have Carlton Kirby and Matt Stephens ever commentated together? That really would be the dream team.

omri

Darkglasses wrote: »

Have Carlton Kirby and Matt Stephens ever commentated together? That really would be the dream team.

I was hoping for Carlton Kirby and Jens Voigt. They would have a great banter together

MPFG

Really fascinated by Betencur...I love the difficult ones

All Astana from DSs to riders saying they are going for pink today...so expect Aru to attack

SKY not as prominent as usual

mhiggy09

Contador not taking any risks....not even putting on a jacket.
I back Betancur for the stage win.

Darkglasses

mhiggy09 wrote: »

Contador not taking any risks....not even putting on a jacket.
I back Betancur for the stage win.

Good shout!

I just grabbed Vandewalle 100/1 e/w

pelevin

Just a general Giro thought of how stupid & presumptuous of SaxoT to work against the break the other day when they had Kreuziger in such a great position in it. That should have been a strong card in their own favour, instead put everything on Contador. It's not as if you'd have to look too far back to find him having an accident in a GT.

pelevin

Vandewalle must be considered rubbish on the climbs to be in a 3 man break with several minutes & still be 80/1 to win the stage!

mhiggy09

attacks are coming thick and fast!

Darkglasses

pelevin wrote: »

Vandewalle must be considered rubbish on the climbs to be in a 3 man break with several minutes & still be 80/1 to win the stage!

He's dropped Betancur :eek:

Come on big lad!

pelevin

I'd not be surprised to see Contador take time out of his rivals - though of course it's all totally unknown what state he'll be in when it really kicks off presumably soon enough. . . . though actually I probably would be a bit surprised cos injury or not, the form Porte has been in all season, he'd be hard to dislodge.

mhiggy09

Betancur is suffering. Kruijswijk leading by 2.48 over the peloton, 48 over chase group.

mhiggy09

KABOOM!!

retalivity

Hah landa chasing aru...

mhiggy09

Its a tactical move....to make sky and tinkov chase as hes only 1min something down on gc

Daroxtar

Good stage. Aru has to be a bit deflated after that. He gave it a shot but Bertie just wouldn't go away.

Darkglasses

Can't win 'em all!

pelevin

Daroxtar wrote: »

Good stage. Aru has to be a bit deflated after that. He gave it a shot but Bertie just wouldn't go away.

Though not sure the gradient was quite enough for the main men to expect to be able to distance each other. Also on results so far in his pretty young career, very strong though he's been, he'd surely be getting ahead of himself for Aru to expect to drop these kind of riders at will.

funnights74

Cracking stage, more than makes up for yesterday. Contador looked ok, happy enough not to lose anything to his main rivals, he's bound to improve as the race progresses. Nice tactical move by Astana to put another guy up the road, they're playing the long game. Porte looked strong as well, it's really going to be an exciting few weeks racing.

MPFG

funnights74 wrote: »

Cracking stage, more than makes up for yesterday. Contador looked ok, happy enough not to lose anything to his main rivals, he's bound to improve as the race progresses. Nice tactical move by Astana to put another guy up the road, they're playing the long game. Porte looked strong as well, it's really going to be an exciting few weeks racing.

Astana rider up the road took the bonus seconds that Aru would have gotten and gone into Pink..

Porte did not look that strong tbh ....Aru & Uran looked better IMO and Contador even with a dislocated shoulder looked better

Cannot see any of them beating Contador

Astana team looked unbelievable ....Cataldo as good as Porte , Uran , etc
Landa better than all ......since when ??

Only way Contador beaten IMO is if Astana use their numbers earlier and put TCS to the sword

SKY very lack lustre ...came to the front alright but just to hang in there and set a ok ish tempo for a while....no where near as fast as Astana

Inquitus

MPFG wrote: »

Astana rider up the road took the bonus seconds that Aru would have gotten and gone into Pink..

Porte did not look that strong tbh ....Aru & Uran looked better IMO and Contador even with a dislocated shoulder looked better

Cannot see any of them beating Contador

Astana team looked unbelievable ....Cataldo as good as Porte , Uran , etc
Landa better than all ......since when ??

Only way Contador beaten IMO is if Astana use their numbers earlier and put TCS to the sword

SKY very lack lustre ...came to the front alright but just to hang in there and set a ok ish tempo for a while....no where near as fast as Astana

Porte looked fine, Uran looked awful, Contador so so and Aru hard to tell with a teammate up the road. In the end the climb wasn't tough enough for big gaps and noone wanted to ride. Remember there is the biggest ITT in living memory at the Giro 59.4km next Sat, gaps here will likely be huge, so maybe some riders don't need to take big time in the mountains.

MPFG

Inquitus wrote: »

Porte looked fine, Uran looked awful, Contador so so and Aru hard to tell with a teammate up the road. In the end the climb wasn't tough enough for big gaps and noone wanted to ride. Remember there is the biggest ITT in living memory at the Giro 59.4km next Sat, gaps here will likely be huge, so maybe some riders don't need to take big time in the mountains.

I disagree...climb long enough for gaps ...any gaps
And Porte was not able to accelerate on attack like we have seen earlier in season
Uran stayed with leaders which shows improvement and thus not awful

As for ITT ...no one can afford to wait for gaps here except maybe Uran

Brian?

MPFG wrote: »

Astana rider up the road took the bonus seconds that Aru would have gotten and gone into Pink..

Porte did not look that strong tbh ....Aru & Uran looked better IMO and Contador even with a dislocated shoulder looked better

Cannot see any of them beating Contador

Astana team looked unbelievable ....Cataldo as good as Porte , Uran , etc
Landa better than all ......since when ??

Only way Contador beaten IMO is if Astana use their numbers earlier and put TCS to the sword

SKY very lack lustre ...came to the front alright but just to hang in there and set a ok ish tempo for a while....no where near as fast as Astana

To be fair, no one stood out today among the GC contenders. Astana controlled the pace well without ever really bringing the pain, Sky seem to have forgotten how to ride a grand tour, Tinkoff-Saxo were alright and Etixx-quickstep don't seem to have any climbing domestiques.

Aru and Contador need to do a job on Porte tomorrow, he's too dangerous in the TT.