il Giro d'Italia 2015
9th May to 31st May 2015

lean and mean

(to Giro d'Italia web site)

cycling tactics

the cycling zone

The Tour de France 2017, Russian mountains on steroids!

Giro d'Italia 2017

Giro d'Italia 2016

Giro d'Italia 2015

Giro d'Italia 2014

Giro d'Italia 2013

Giro d'Italia 2012

Giro d'Italia 2011

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the final day : contador 'wins'

1. CONTADOR VELASCO Alberto | ESP | TCS |  88:22:25  | 0:00
2. ARU Fabio | ITA | AST | 88:24:18 | 1:53
3. LANDA MEANA Mikel | ESP | AST | 88:25:30 | 3:05
4. AMADOR Andrey | CRC | MOV | 88:30:35 | 8:10
5. HESJEDAL Ryder | CAN | TCG | 88:32:17 | 9:52

The Giro this year has been exceedingly boring. Contador (32 y.o.) has won on a course where mountain climbing has been reduced to a minimum, unless he falls off his bike during today's parade.

Contador has cracked in the final days of what mountain climbing remained, while Aru (24 y.o.), the new great young cyclist from Sardinia was 'fined' 2 minutes for a triviality.
Thus, Aru would have won by seven seconds but for that fine.

Almost all Contador's advantage is down to a long time trial day (stage 14) where he gained nearly 3 minutes on Aru and 4 minutes on Landa. Without that, it is unlikely Contador could have done better than 3rd.

Landa (24 y.o.) from Basqueland, is the great new find of the tour, others trailing behind.

the italian giro

The Giro d’Italia, the Tour of Italy, is the first of the major three-week tours - The Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, the Vuelta d'Espana - in the annual repertoire of international cycle races.

• This year, the Corsa Rosa (Pink race), the Giro d’Italia, takes place from the 9th May to 31st May 2015,
  starting in Sanremo with a 17.6 km team time trial along a dramatic coastal cycle path.
• For 2015, the Giro will remain entirely in Italy, but it will not go further south than San Georgio del Sannio.
  
  
• As with the 2014 Vuelta a España and this year's Tour de France, this year's Giro is constructed within the constraints of austerity where towns cannot afford to welcome the race, despite the financial benefits it does bring. So here in Italy, the race does not go muche further south than Naples, so not visiting the poorest regions in the south, including Sicily. (This is fairly usual for the Giro.)
  
  
• The 2015 Giro extends over 3482 km, averaging about 166 km a day.
• The race will finish in the northern city of Milan, after an absence of two years, this stage including a seven-lap city circuit.
• There's also a long 59.2 km, individual time trial with a varied profile, the longest for several years.
  
  
• Seven mountain finishes (high mountain stages in bold):
  • Stage 5: Abetone in the central Apennines between Florence and Bologna,
  • Stage 8: Campitello Matese near Naples,
  • Stage 9: San Giorgio Del Sannio
  • Stage 15: Madonna di Campiglio,
  • Stage 16: Aprica, after climbing the Mortirolo,
  • Stage 19: Cervinia in the Alps,
  • Stage 20: Sestriere, after the unpaved track to the 2,178m summit of the Colle delle Finestre.
     Being the highest point in this year's Giro, the Cima Coppi prize will be won here.
• By ensuring that the highest point is only at 2,178m , the organisers, RCS Sport, are avoiding the probability the sort of bad weather and subsequent contentions that occurred last year on the Passo Stelvio (Stage 16) where there were very treacherous conditions and confusion over quickly instigated safety instructions.
  
  
• Six stages for the sprinters:
  Stages 2, 6, 7, 10, 13, 17, 21,
  plus Stage 11 to Imola that includes three 16.9km circuits and the finish in the motor racing circuit named after Enzo and Dino Ferrari.
• Transfer distances between stages are being limited to less than 1,000 km. This includes a 350 km transfer to San Giorgio del Sannio after Stage 9, but the next day is a rest day. Thus, generally riders should be in their hotels within an hour after finishing most stages.

Giro d'Italia 2015 - race map
Click for a large version of the Giro race map

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Complete profile for the 2015 Giro d'Italia
click here for larger version

11:15 mins

this year’s stages

21 stages are planned, with four high mountain stages, three medium mountain stages, one individual time trial (stages14), a team time trial (stage 1) and eight stages for sprinters. There will be two rest days. All other days are flat stages. The total distance ridden will be 3,482 km, or roughly 2,164 miles.

mountain stages - summit and uphill finishes

To some, yet another summit finish after a long ride may become tiresomely repetitious, but the spectacular scenery behind and around the riders is worth watching, while the riders' skill in retaining sufficient energy for climbs that can have a gradient of 13% or more makes for exciting watching.

Here we show the profiles for the summit and uphill finishes, together with the gradient figures.

Stage 5 La Spezia - Abetone final climb: 17.3 km, climbing 928 m, av. gradient: 5.4%, max. grad.: 10%	Stage 8 Fuiggi - Campitello Matese final climb: 13 km, climbing 919 m, av. gradient: 6.9%, max. grad.: 12%
Stage 9 Benevento - San Giorgio Del Sannio Monte Termino, first intermediate climb: 20 km, climbing 833 m, av. gradient: 4.2%, max. grad.: 9% Colle Molella, second intermediate climb: 9.6 km, climbing 597 m, av. gradient: 6.2%, max. grad.: 12%	Stage 15 Marostica - Madonna Di Campiglio Passo Daone, intermediate climb: 8.4 km, climbing 775m, av. gradient: 9.2%, max. grad.: 14%, second Madonna Di Campiglio, finishing climb: 8.4 km, climbing 775m, av. gradient: 9.2%, max. grad.: 14%
Stage 16 Pinzola - Aprica Passo del Tonale, first intermediate climb: climb: 15.3 km, climbing 926 m, av. gradient: 6.1%, max. grad.: 10% Passo del Mortirolo, second intermediate climb: climb: 12.8 km, climbing 1289 m, av. gradient: 10.1%, max. grad.: 18% Aprica, finishing climb: 13.9 km, climbing 485 m, av. gradient: 3.4%, max. grad.: 15%	Stage 19 Gravellona Toce - Cervinia Saint-Barthélemy, first intermediate climb: climb: 20.1km, climbing 1,116 m, av. gradient: 5.6%, max. grad.: 13% Col de Saint-Pantaléon, second intermediate climb: climb: 16.5 km, climbing 1,184 m, av. gradient: 7.2%, max. grad.: 12% Cervina, finishing climb: 19.2 km, climbing 961 m, av. gradient: 5.0%, max. grad.: 12%
Stage 20 Saint-Vincent - Sestriere Colle delle Finestre - the ' Cima Coppi ', intermediate climb: 18.45 km, climbing 1,694 m, av. gradient: 9.2%, max. grad.: 14% Sestriere, finishing climb: 9.2 km, climbing 493 m, av. gradient: 5.4%, max. grad.: 9%	Colle delle Finestre - the ' Cima Coppi

this year’s favourites

Favourites for 2014 include Cadel Evans (BMC), Nairo Quintana (MOV), Joaquim Rodríguez (KAT), Rigoberto Urán (OPQ).
Other possible contenders are Ivan Basso (CAN), Rafał Majka (TCS), Dan Martin (GRS), Przemysław Niemiec (LAM), Domenico Pozzovivo (ALM) and Michele Scarponi (AST).

first ten riders in the 2014 giro

1. Nairo Quintana | COL| MOV | 88h 14' 32"
2. Rigoberto Urán | COL | OPQ | + 2' 58"
3. Fabio Aru | ITA | AST | + 4' 04"
4. Pierre Rolland | FRA | Team Europcar | + 5' 46" 
5. Domenico Pozzovivo | ITA | ALM | + 6' 32"
6. Rafal Majka | POL | Tinkoff-Saxo | + 7' 04"
7. Wilco Kelderman | NED | BEL | + 11' 00"
8. Cadel Evans | AUS | BMC | + 11' 51"
9. Ryder Hesjedal | CAN | Garmin-Sharp | + 13' 35"
10. Robert Kišerlovski | CRO | Trek Factory Racing | + 15' 49"

the classification jerseys

Here are the four classification jerseys for the 2015 Giro.

The overall winner’s jersey is pink, like the paper on which the sponsoring newspaper is printed.
The points jersey is red to illustrate the fiery passion of the fight for points.
The best climber’s jersey is the blue of the sky to which they are climbing.
The best young rider’s jersey is white like the innocence of youth.

the teams

There are 22 teams this year, 17 professional teams and five wildcard teams: Androni Giocattoli, Bardiani-CSF, CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice, Southeast Pro Cycling, Nippo-Vini Fantini.

team	country	code	strip
AG2R LA MONDIALE	FRA	ALM
ANDRONI GIOCATTOLI*	ITA	AND
ASTANA PRO TEAM	KAS	AST
BARDIANI CSF*	ITA	BAR
BMC RACING TEAM	USA	BMC
Cannondale-Garmin	USA	TCG
CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice*	ITA	CCC
Etixx-Quick Step	BEL	EQS
FDJ	FRA	FDJ
IAM Cycling	SWI	IAM
Giant-Alpecin	GER	TGA
TEAM KATUSHA	RUS	KAT
LAMPRE-MERIDA	ITA	LAM
Lotto-Soudal	BEL	LTS
LottoNL-Jumbo	NED	TLJ
MOVISTAR TEAM	ESP	MOV
Southeast Pro Cycling*	GBR	STH
Nippo-Vini Fantini*	ITA	VFN
ORICA-GREENEDGE	AUS	OGE
TEAM EUROCAR	FRA	EUC
TEAM SKY	GBR	SKY
TINKOFF SAXO	RUS	TCS
TREK FACTORY RACING	USA	TFR

Watching the Giro - on the roadside, on TV

Watching the Giro in Italy is very similar to watching the Tour in France. abelard.org has several pages giving general advice on how to be a effective road-side spectator.

• Le Tour 2: preparing to watch the Tour
• Le Tour 3: the Great Day arrives
• le Tour 4: preparing to watch a mountain stage

Daily live TV coverage will be available from British Eurosport, who will provide daily live coverage from all stages of this year’s Giro d'Italia.
One or other of Sky Sports channels is showing highlights during the evening.

using the il Giro web site

1. This web site is created by La Gazzetta dello Sport, an Italian sports newspaper, that has been the organisers of Le Giro cycle race since 1909.
   
   
2. To find details of a stage [tappa], use the navigation bar, that’s the circles and dots, near the top of the page
   

Note the response time will probably be very slow, this site appears to be regularly overloaded at the moment.
The navigation pop-up at the bottom of the window just gives basic details of a stage - date, distance and difficulty, start and end towns.


While a stge is is actually taking place, this pop-up bar changes and includes the word LIVE!, here indicated with an arrow:


Clicking on LIVE! changes the page to a display like below (for a rainy stage 9):


Clicking on the time splits changes the road to show the cyclists on the road (the display reverts to just the road when the site is not keeping up):


Clicking on the road gives a close-up of the cyclists, with the Maglia Rosa group highlighted:

1. For classification information, you must first choose Classifiche from Giro 2013 dropdown menu on the pink navigation bar.
   
   Then when the page updates, there is a new array of navigation choices a bit further down the page:
   
   Tappa - stage, Generali - general, Retrati - retired; tapa golosa - feeding station

email email_abelard [at] abelard.org

© abelard, 2015, 8 May


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the address for this document is https://www.abelard.org/italy/giro_italia_2015.php