Like always, the Giro d’Italia offers a series of races within the race, with the battle between the many big-name sprinters likely to keep us highly entertained until the overall contenders emerge in the final week of the race.
Injury, crashes and an ever wider proliferation of races around the planet have limited the number of sprint showdowns so far this season but the concentration of sprinters at the Giro d’Italia should ensure sparks fly often in the first two weeks. Only Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep) are missing from the Giro d’Italia start list. Everyone else, from Arnaud Demare (FDJ) to Elia Viviani (Team Sky), including Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) and Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) and Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge), will be fighting for victory in the sprints.
Race director Mauro Vegni of RCS Sport must have been feeling benevolent or indebted towards the sprinters when he designed this year’s route, ensuring there are at least seven stages which should finish in adrenaline-fueled fast finishes. Two come immediately after the opening time trial in Apeldoorn and so the three-day Grande Partenza weekend will all be about speed.
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Of course, the sprinters and their teammates will have to earn their opportunities and chase the breakaway riders who always attack in search of glory and time on television for their sponsors. If they want to contest all the sprint finishes, the velocisti will also have to make it all the way to the finish in Turin, or at least Cassano d’Adda on stage 17.
Modern day professional racing demands constant success from the sprinters and so many will no doubt bail out of the Giro d’Italia before the mountain stages begin on stage 13 in the north-eastern Friuli region to rest up for the Tour de Suisse and other pre-Tour de France appointments. Only the Italian sprinters keen to fight for the red points jersey will perhaps stay in the race until the very end, knowing that they will not have to fight in the sprints all over again at the Tour de France.
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