Graham's view

May 3rd, 2012

After four great one-day wins in March and April, Tom Boonen is wearing the crown as the best Classics rider of the season. But who will wear the crown as winner of the 2012 Giro d’Italia? By winning E3 Prijs Harelbeke, Ghent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, Boonen overshadowed the achievement of Philippe Gilbert in 2011 when the Walloon won three Ardennes Classics in a row. Both Boonen and Gilbert will surely feature again in 2012, perhaps at the Tour de France or Olympics, and at the Worlds too? All Boonen needs to do is re-find his extraordinary form to win once again, while Gilbert just needs to find form to win – to win just anything! But with their Omega and BMC teams looking at overall ambitions in the Tour, we may have to wait a good while longer to see this pair of Belgians racing the way they’d like to. Omega must fancy their Tour podium chances with Levi Leipheimer, and may even leave Boonen behind. While BMC would want Gilbert to be 100-percent behind defending champion Cadel Evans rather than chasing his own glory as he did in 2011.

To find the Giro winner, we have to sift through the recent evidence of the Ardennes Classics and last week’s Tour de Romandie, and even then we may not find any conclusive names. As familiar as it is, from Italy I’d pick Ivan Basso and Michele Scarponi to take a podium place, and then add equally familiar names like Emmanuele Sella and Marco Pinotti to the mix. All these guys have ridden a solid Giro di Trentino without fully showing their full capability. But come the second-half of a very tough Giro, we’ll see few people able to challenge these home riders. The foreign assault on the G.C. will be led by Frank Schleck, Joachim Rodriguez, Ryder Hesjedal, Roman Kreuziger and maybe Mikel Nieve of Euskatel – though one has to also consider the five south Americans on Sella’s Androni team as well. So, I hear you all saying, this Giro line-up doesn’t amount to an awful lot, does it?

Well, no, it doesn’t, at least not on paper, and not with such ‘mature’ riders as Basso and Scarponi clinging to the throne. Instead, the most potent aspect of the Giro might well be in the sprinting, where the likes of Italy’s Bennati, Chicci and Modolo will more than meet their match in foreign sprinters such as Cavendish, Farrar, Demare, Feillu, Haedo, Renshaw, Ventoso, Meersman, or Goss. Opportunists such as Hushovd, Pozzovivo, Ballan, Zaugg, Uran, De Gendt and Pozzato will entertain us between the hilly and sprinting stages, while the time trial world is fully provided for with men like Tuft, Phinney, Vande Velde, Rasmussen, Clement, Sergent, Thomas and Larsson. These fast and low specialists will lead their ambitious teams in the stage four TTT, with Sky, Garmin, Shack, Green Edge and BMC fighting for bragging rights for the next few weeks. Yes, the sharp end of the Giro peloton might seem a little blunt, but there’s no doubt a great three weeks’ racing awaits us.

Aside from that TTT in Verona, don’t expect too much G.C. action before stage 14 to Cervinia – effectively the Giro’s first mountain-top finish. This is an unusual Giro route in that we must wait almost two weeks to get to that first real mountain, and there’s no way of knowing who might be in the lead by then. The time-trialling and sprinting will likely see a regular change of Maglia Rosa, but somewhere in that first two weeks an escape will get away and gain significant time over the so-called favourites. The remaining week, almost all of it in the Dolomites and Alps, will see a battle between the best climbers and the best of whoever was in that escape. Pinotti is the name on most peoples’ lips, but I’d be surprised if the popular Italian will really be allowed to get away, such a dangerman he is. I’d love to see a new, fresh face in Pink, someone like Green Edge’s Beppu or Shack’s Ben Hermans, now that would be a nice diversion before the real action begins.

However this Giro is won and by whomever, I hope and pray that it will actually happen on the penultimate stage-finish to the Passo dello Stelvio. The organisers deserve all the luck they can find by having this stage occur in 2012. Going that high (2,757-metres/9,045 feet) in late-May is always going to be risky, and perhaps even more so given the recent weeks of wet and cold conditions in Europe. Yet it is perhaps the most iconic mountain-pass in Italian cycling history, far beyond the fame of ‘rival’ ascents like the Gavia, Mortirolo, Agnello, Fedaia or Corones. If all goes well, this will be only the 10^th ascent by the Giro – that’s how risky the stage can be. I expect the Stelvio to be the photographic highlight of the Giro, even if the survivors of the Giro may well climb it in ones and twos all the way up through its 22-kilometres and 34 famous bends. If it’s not the Stelvio that triggers my photographic heart the hardest, it will be the previous day’s Passo Manghen, or stage 17’s Passo Giau – indeed, the whole stage to Cortina d’Ampezzo should be a delight to record!

I’ll go to the Giro having digested a whole month of one-day Classics and then the five-day jaunt in Switzerland that is the Tour de Romandie. Something of a holiday after the win-or-lose Classics, Romandie allowed me to switch to stage-racing mode, with all the fun and adventure that comes with it. Coffee stops and a roadside sandwich become the norm’ for my day as we wait for the race to approach, and the excellent internet in Switzerland ensures there are far fewer late-evening meals and shortened nights. Seeing great racing amid great landscapes is one delight, but to also see the cyclists relaxing and having a better time of it than in the more stressful Classics sets the tone for the races to come. Team Sky dominated and won Romandie through Bradley Wiggins, but the way in which his teammates supported him – most especially Mark Cavendish – must send shivers down their rivals’ spines for July.

Although I used my new pair of Nikon D4 cameras in the Ardennes Classics, it was only in Romandie when I really got used to working with them. They are a dream, not so different from the D3 or D3s, but with faster-working dials and buttons, and with a production that seems sharper and more colourful than the highly-acclaimed D3 series. The increase in file-size – up to 46mb from 34mb – means you do need very good internet, something I’ll be anxious about come the Giro and Italy’s notoriously slow service-providers. But I am so excited by the cameras’ potential. Think of the Giro, then think of the Tour – it’s coming quicker than some of us may care to realize. The Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse squeeze nicely into the Giro-to-Tour gap, but one cannot hold back the passing of the days and weeks, and before you know it will be June 30^th, and the Prologue of the Tour de France in Liege.