Giro d'Italia 2023

The Soudal team for the Tour as listed by PCS and others is Alaphilipe, Jakobsen, Morkov, Senechal, Cavagna, Lampaert, Baglioli, Vansevenent

But we know that Lefevre can change tack pretty quickly

I don’t think him doing the tour necessarily fixes the awful season for the team, he realistically isn’t going to be a top contender with a lack of preparation for himself and the team around him. They’re not going to beat UAE and Jumbo, and they’d probably struggle against Ineos with Bernal unless Remco’s back in super form.

If anything sending him to the tour and taking away the sprint team to give him domestiques could make it an even worse season for them if they end up with 0 stage wins, which is a strong possibility.

They’ll just target the Vuelta again

That would all assume that in 7 weeks, Remco has a complete recovery from Covid with no residual effects and can re-set his fitness peak from May to July. Given he spent the guts of 6 weeks off-grid preparing for the Giro before turning up for LBL and then a ~ 2 week taper into the Giro itself, its difficult to see how he can repeat that type of preparation.

that is tough luck on remco...just when it was to starting to get interesting

We could see change of tactics now with more teams willing to gamble on breaks.

Bora are usually very active but they’ve done nothing so far. Is it worth riding to get Vlasov & Kemna in top 10 instead of trying for stages? Soudal have been freed of Remco. Movistar have done nothing. DSM have been great but without Maglia Rosa will hopefully go back stage hunting

Only Jayco have tried for breakaways, looked after Matthews and made sure Dunbar has been OK in the hills.

I shouldn't LOL, but...

Saw the start a little while ago. Hatch speaking about “talk” of no racing for first 100km or so only for the flag to drop and dozens try to get in the break. Ha

Jens is agressively enthusiastic on that motorbike. Polar opposite of when Wiggo had that gig.