Giro d’Italia 2015 – Stage 5 Preview
By David Hunter
La Spezia – Abetone 152km
After another crazy day, the peloton will be hoping for some kind of normality. The stage is short and quite easy. It doesn’t lend itself to the crazy riding of the last couple of days.
The opening climb is 10km at 5%. With the long climb at the end of the stage, you would normally see the peloton going fairly easy up these slopes. This stage should all be about the final climb.
It average slope is only 5.4%, but the climb is very long, at 17.3km. There are three clearly defined sections: 4.5km at 2.8%, 8km at 7.2% and 4.8km at 4.7%.
The climb is very straight and will be difficult for any escape group, as they will be in the sights of the peloton. It looks like the final climb could be quite windy, a crosswind from the west. This will encourage the bunch to stay together, to enable the GC stars to stay sheltered.
In any normal race, the profile of the stage would ensure a quiet day. However, this isn’t any normal race. Tinkoff and Astana seem to be in a battle to prove which team is the strongest. This has resulted in some crazy days, but surely this stage will go to plan?
The normally plan is a small break will get away, without any GC hopefuls. Most riders are now way down on GC, so finding breakaway contenders will be easy. They won’t be allowed to get a big lead and they’ll be brought back, on the lower slopes of the final climb. At that point, the dominant teams will start to control the race. Both Astana and Tinkoff will want to fill that role.
A pace will be set that will gradually eliminates the hopefuls, until GC riders are lacking teammates. At that point, we get the attacks and eventually the escape is made.
One issue is the difficulty of the climb. This is only a cat 2 climb and it shouldn’t be hard enough to bring a small group to the line. We should see a larger group of around 30 riders still in contention, towards the end of the stage. That means, we have every chance of an uphill sprint, similar to Ulissi’s win in 2014.
Another option is that the GC riders mark each other, making it impossible for them to escape. A “lesser” rider is allowed freedom and they solo away to the win. Similar to Aru in the Giro and Vuelta, in 2014.
Or, Tinkoff and Astana, get fed up of controlling the race and they attack with their own “lesser” riders. That would hand an opportunity to Kreuziger, Cataldo or Rosa.
The middle section of the climb, 8km at 7.2%, is hard enough to eliminate riders, as long as it’s raced fast. Going on the last couple of days, it seems that a fierce pace will be set and it will be a battle between the GC elite. After today, it’s clear that Aru, Contador or Porte will win this race. This should be another battle between them. They all have strong teams and should have some teammates left, in the closing stages. The likes of Cataldo, Landa, Rosa, Kreuziger, Konig and Nieve might just have their day, if given some freedom.
What really happens, no one knows. Well maybe, Oleg Tinkov does!
Prediction Time
Time for this race to get real. The small break doesn’t make it and we get a GC battle on the climb. It will be raced fast and I think Fabio Aru looks to be in the best shape just now. He should take the win, but then again, anything could happen!
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David Hunter
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