Giro Favourites

pelevin

Now the Spring Classics are done & dusted, with the Giro the next really big thing on the horizon, just wondering how folks see the big contenders for it. With the bookies Nibali is still the strong favourite, though with Landa closing in all the time, next up Valverde & of others including Majka just tossing in the name of Dumoulin after his Vuelta exploits.
On form Landa seems the clear hottest, & with Nibali someone now it's become hard to know what to expect of, and with some ground to make up apparently.

So do you - whoever you may be - see for instance Nibali as the genuine favourite, or favour perhaps Landa as the most likely man, or even Valverde & so on . . . ?

Inquitus

pelevin wrote: »

Now the Spring Classics are done & dusted, with the Giro the next really big thing on the horizon, just wondering how folks see the big contenders for it. With the bookies Nibali is still the strong favourite, though with Landa closing in all the time, next up Valverde & of others including Majka just tossing in the name of Dumoulin after his Vuelta exploits.
On form Landa seems the clear hottest, & with Nibali someone now it's become hard to know what to expect of, and with some ground to make up apparently.

So do you - whoever you may be - see for instance Nibali as the genuine favourite, or favour perhaps Landa as the most likely man, or even Valverde & so on . . . ?

The Giro has a number of stages that finish with a descent, that would potentially lend themselves to Nibali. It has 5 Mountain top finishes of varying degrees, it is TT light which helps Landa having only a short prologue and an uphill TT of 11km.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/racing/giro-ditalia/giro-ditalia-route-192184

Nibs is 13/8 best price and Landa 3/1.

I don't know how strong Landa's Sky Team is against Nibali's Astana team, but you'd have to think on this Parcours with minimal TT Landa's got a great shout of winning.

neris

Really dont want to see Nibali win this. Landa be my call for now. Cant aee dumoulin doing anything giant are still bolloxed after their pre season. Saw somewhere that Nico & Deignan are lining up for sky

gordongekko

neris wrote: »

Really dont want to see Nibali win this. Landa be my call for now. Cant aee dumoulin doing anything giant are still bolloxed after their pre season. Saw somewhere that Nico & Deignan are lining up for sky

Is landa really any better than nibs. I don't really want to see and current or ex Astana people winning. I just don't like them.

dastardly00

Valverde to win his debut Giro?

pelevin

I'd see it as not making much sense judging Nibali negatively cos of the Astana thing in any contrast to Landa seeing as Landa was from the same team. And hopefully Sky's signing of Landa signifies a green light as to his being legit when with Astana. Also the fluctuations in Nibali's form seem to me to suggest something very human about a rider rather than being metronomically near the top of his game, though someone else might argue differently.

Though anyway, interesting about the finishes with a descent - hopefully leading to thrilling attacking, unstructured racing rather than the descents simply helping neutralise the ascents!

Lack of TTs - didn't know that either - certainly would seem to be setting things up very nicely for Landa.

godtabh

neris wrote: »

Really dont want to see Nibali win this. Landa be my call for now. Cant aee dumoulin doing anything giant are still bolloxed after their pre season. Saw somewhere that Nico & Deignan are lining up for sky

Roche has changed his program. He was tweeting about it recently. I assume that means he is out of the TdF