Answer The Survey And Find Out Who Will Be The Rider Of The Giro d'Italia

Who is the Rider of the Giro d'Italia?

Nibali

Dumoulin

Kittel

Greipel

Brambilla

Ulissi

Valverde

Nizzolo

Nieve

Jungels

Chaves

Kruijswijk

 

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Nibali, The Human Champion

In one of the worst Giro ever created by the organizers, the Alps and the riders keep the Giro d'Italia the most exciting Grand Tour of the year.
Nibali, supported by a strong team and a gigantic Scarponi, is the main character of this Giro: the human and humble champion.
He didn't demolished the road: he fought, he struggled, he won, this is what true champions do.
There has been a lot of chatting around Nibali but Vincenzo, with his Sicilian charcater, kept riding  and fighting.
I think that now Nibali can be definitely considered one of  the top Grand Tour riders in the world, if not the best.
I don't know how many Tour de France winners of the latest years would be able to do what Nibali did in this Giro, but that's a matter for a separate talk.
There is just one stain on Vincenzo's epic quest, but it is not his fault: Nibali won't celebrate his victory in Milan, the city of the Giro d'Italia. This is the last shitty surprise coming from the organizers; luckily tomorrow it is the last stage.
Imagine to win a Tour de France and celebrate riding the last stage in a place different than Paris, this is what will happen tomorrow.
Thank you Nibali, the human champion.

Team Vs. Individual Sport

There in as everlasting diatribe: Cyling is an individual or a team sport?
This Giro is proving that you can play it and maybe (we have to wait until sunday) win in both ways.
Etixx - Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team is the most representative example that cycling is a team sport. They came to the Giro without a real champion and with their perfect team tactics were able to: win stages, keep the Maglia Rosa (Pink Jersey) and the red jersey for a few days and maybe (we have to wait until sunday), win the white jersey.
Steven Kruijswijk is proving that you can win a Grand Tour alone, trying to affirm that cycling is an individual sport.
Once again the diatribe can't be settled, it depends on Kruijswijk. If he will win the Giro, this would be a seatback for the supporters of the team sport side.
Nevertheless, if Kruijswijk will loose the Giro, this would be a knockout blow for the theory affirming that cycling is an individual sport.
The last 3 stages of the Giro d'Italia are not just a battle for the final podium, they are a battle between two different conceptions of cycling.

Dolomites Don't Lie

In a drowsy Giro finally Dolomites arrived.
It is fantstic to see how, facing these climbs, there is no space for tactics or tricks.
Dolomites are the mountains of the truth, there is no space for lies. In the last two days, I've heard people talking about the unpredictability of this sport, this is true but we have to clarify a point: Nibali or Valverde didn't have an inexplicable slump. What happened to this Champions it is easy to explain: they have just found riders in a better shape or stronger than them.
This didn't come out until now due to the kind of stages that Giro d'Italia 2016 presented so far.
Giro d'Italia is the toughest Grand Tour for this reason: you can't prepare it in a scientific way, when Dolomites arrives it is just you, your bike, your energies and your soul.
This is not a Grand Tour for robots, it is a race for romantic heroes.
You can't prepare and pretend to control the Giro using data provided by a computer, you have to understand and feel the Dolomites.
In conclusion I want to thank these incredible mountains for keeping the Giro the best Grand Tour in the world despite the economics interests that recently are making Giro a Grand Tour with a slow start.
If the organizers will draw in this way the route of the  future Giros, Giro d'Italia could last just 3 days, the three Dolomite stages.
Giro was the hardest race because it was full of tricky stages for clever riders, I ask the organizers not to let us, in the future, just hope and wait for the Dolomites to come. This will happen anyway, but with a different amount of emotions accumulated during the first two weeks.

Pink Jersey Survey

Brambilla, the Pink Jersey, during the last climb pulled for his teammate Jungels, did he make the correct choice?

Yes, It's important to keep the Pink Jersey inside the team

No, he should have honoured the Pink Jersey until the end

 

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Giro d'Italia or Tour de France?

The 99th Giro d'Italia has been a strange Giro so far.
Giro was famous to present great fights since the first week, with tricky stages and new strong climbs found around the country every year, while waiting for the giants of the Alps.
This edition of the Giro d'Italia looks like a poor Tour de France, with predictable stages during the first week, a time trial as first battle ground for the contenders and in general a slow waiting for the climbs that will arrive later on.
This is not what has made Giro the most exciting, hardest and unpredictable Grand Tour.
Giro has always been a race for emotional and crazy riders, ready to attack without too many tactics. This was made possible, even in modern cycling, by the features of the stages, never dull and resourceful for the attackers.
Putting a time trial after the first week it is tipical of the Tour de Frace, where you wait bored until the last week, hoping for a rider to attack by chance.
The Tour de France, in recent years, changed its structure, understanding that the kind of race they presented was unsustainable for the show and the Tour de France became more similar to the Giro.
Now, my question is: why if the proud and presumptuous French organizers have changed the Tour de Frace, making it more similar to the Giro, in order to make more exciting the first part of the race, Italian organizers are copying the old Tour de France organizers making the Giro a boring race with a slow start?

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Giro d'Italia

In order to understsand what Giro d'Italia is, you have to do two things: buy and wear the Pink Jersey and deal with the first rest day.
During the first rest day of the Giro you have to deal with a deep sense of loneliness. In  few days you are already used to your new run of the mill and your day is empty without the daily stage.
This makes you understand, by contrast, what a presence, suddenly, Giro d'Italia becomes in your days once started.
You feel immediately part of the Giro's convoy and in a state of empathy with the riders.
Giro d'Italia is a 3 weeks party and  you are Giro addicted just after the prologue.
On the other side, wearing the Pink Jersey, makes you understand why the riders are struggling and fighting for it.
Put on a Pink jersey and you will feel incredibly satisfied, you will find yourself smiling without a particular reason, this is the power of the Pink Jersey. This is what happens when you buy the jersey, just try to imagine what does it mean if you conquer it on the road.
The last consideration concerns Giro d'Italia as a work of art.
During 3 weeks, you can watch a living painting every day. You see a multicolor peloton moving around the most beautifu and various country in the world.
BUON GIRO!

Danilo Di Luca - Bestie da Vittoria

Generally I don't buy Sport biographies but, I don't know why, since I've heard of this book I knew I wanted it. Of course not because of the doping matter and so on, this is a silly reason to buy this book, also because this is not a book about doping.
I bought the book and I finished it in 5 days.
This book deserves a reading because it is the story of a man who discovers, since he was a kid, to be a strong rider, a champion.
Telling the story of this guy the book represents in an incredibly realistc and brave way the world of pro cycling.
Di Luca prove to be a champion signing his book and his statements. This is what makes the difference between a champion and a thief, a "Cycliste Masqué" (review soon).
The book drives you through the life of a man and the career of a rider.
Once finished the book you will see cycling in a different way but not due to  the doping sotries but because, finished this book, you can say you have tried a pro rider experience.

Rider of the Month: April

Congratulations to Peter Sagant who has been elected Rider of the Month for the second time (new record) in a row (new record).
His fantastic performance at the Tour of Flanders and the way he avoided the fallen Cancellara during the Paris - Roubaix are something will remain in the history of cycling.