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Yesterday’s Team Time Trial saw total Sky domination as they blitzed the field around the island of Ischia. The British team came home the fastest in 22:05, nine seconds ahead of Movistar and 14 seconds quicker than Astana.
Orica-GreenEDGE finished 9th, 28 seconds off the pace whilst Cadel Evans’ BMC were +37 at the finish line.
The day was possibly disappointing for GreenEDGE and presents Evans with a real challenge this early in the race.
Today’s stage moves back to the Italian mainland and begins along the beautiful seafront of Sorrento and meanders down the Amalfi Coast, finishing in Marina di Ascea. The peloton will clock up 212km on the day’s journey.
If riders of this year’s Giro were hoping for a nice, easy start to this three week odyssey through Italy, they were sadly mistaken.
The first 120kms or so of today’s stage are relatively flat, perhaps a bump or two but nothing too difficult.
The stage ends, however, with two 650 metre climbs which could lend itself to a speedy finish.
Today may also be a day where we see a break make it to the end.
Predictions: I think Nibali will be one to watch today. He may well have today’s stage earmarked as an opportunity to grab the 20 second time bonus that is on offer.
Nibali’s time trialing doesn’t match that of Wiggins, so he may well use this stage to snare some all important time.
The Italian known as ‘The Shark’ is a maestro at hurtling down a mountain and that time bonus is one carrot worth cranking at break neck speed down a big mountain. His Astana team put in a good showing yesterday, so let’s wait and see what happens.
Another skilled rider on descending is Cadel Evans. He too, may use the two descents to gain an advantage over Wiggins, after yesterday’s disappointing stage.
Evans does seem to have lost his time trialing form of late and all of the GC contenders must have it in the back of their minds that the Olympic time trialing champion is in their midst.
Wiggins was clearly outshone last year by Froome over the mountains of France, so it will be interesting to see how the Briton fares here.
Today’s mountains are by no means the biggest of the race, they are fairly medium in stature, but if there is a split in the peloton some GC hopes could be turning into faded dreams by the end of the stage. Sky’s Salvatore Puccio wears the Maglia Rosa.
So, crank up the heater to transport yourself to the Amalfi Coast from your lounge room and join me from 10.45pm AEST for Stage 3 of the Giro for 2013.
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