Stage 5 – Modena > Cattolica (177km)

Profile

Stage 4 Result

1st Joe DOMBROWSKI (400/1); 2nd Alessandro DE MARCHI (100/1); 3rd Filippo FIORELLI (500/1); 4th Louis VERVAEKE (200/1)

Recommended:

João Almeida 1pt each way (3 places) 12/1

Dan Martin 1pt each way (3 places) 16/1

Kobe Goossens 1pt each way (3 places) 66/1

Felix Großschartner 1pt each way (3 places) 18/1

Chapeau or no (chapeau)?

No chapeau. Another huge priced winner on a filthy day that turned out to be more decisive in the overall race than anticipated. A huge break of 25 riders finally formed after about 40km. It contained plenty of talented climbers, and it was clear pretty early that they’d contest for the win. In turns, Ineos, Astana and then decisively Bahrain–Victorious rode on the front. They set up Landa for an attack on the final climb. Bernal, Carthy and Vlasov followed and were the pick of the GC men. The biggest GC losers were George Bennett, who lost over a minute to his competitors, and alarmingly, João Almeida, who lost over three, promoting Evenepoel as the clear Deceuninck team leader for the rest of the race.

Loss (-8pts)

Preview

A very flat day as the riders travel east through the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy towards the Adriatic coast. So the only thing to prevent the stage ending in a sprint would be the weather, specifically crosswinds, or a serious lack of coordination between the sprint teams. 

The weather again doesn’t look great – rain all day similar to Tuesday and a strongish wind.

There are five big turns in the last 3km so positioning, as ever, is key, but once they go under the flamme rouge it’s flat and straight.

Contenders

It hasn’t been a stellar start to the Giro for Lotto–Soudal: unable to position Caleb Ewan anywhere near the front of the race on stage 2, and then not having any representation in the 25-man break on stage 4 – strange for a team that is purely hunting stage wins. 

Unfortunately, due to the bad weather, we didn’t have live TV pictures for large parts of the start of the stage, and when we did it was very difficult to identify riders in their ubiquitous black rain jackets through the drizzle, so we don’t know how hard Lotto–Soudal riders such as Thomas De Gendt, Kobe Goossens and Harm Vanhoucke tried to get in the breakaway. Perhaps they were told to save their legs in order to add horsepower to Ewan’s leadout for this stage. If so, it was a mistake because either one of those would’ve been favourite for the stage had they made it in. 

Either way, the pressure’s on now and there are no excuses – Lotto have to nail this sprint, or a massive bollocking could be on the evening menu. You can’t write off the feisty Aussie – he’s a fighter and a winner, so we’re going back in with Ewan for the stage win.

After his impressive victory on stage 2, Tim Merlier has been one of the first riders to get dropped as the terrain has headed upwards. He was out the back very early on stages 3 and 4. The road doesn’t go up today, but it doesn’t bode well for his fitness in the race going forward. It’s perhaps also an indication of how much that win took out of him, both physically and emotionally. Merlier has his win; he might lack that small edge to double up here. 

It’s been a welcome return to form for Elia Viviani. At his best, the Italian is a match for anyone. He’s available at around 9/1, and it would be great to see the Italian back to winning ways. 

So too Fernando Gaviria – the Colombian was super impressive on the climbs in stage 3, which Gaviria could’ve won if the cards had fallen a little differently. In fact, he looked more comfortable than Peter Sagan so may even challenge for the maglia ciclamino in the second half of the race. He had the leadout mix-up with Molano on stage 2, with opinion divided as to where the fault lay, but he’s clearly going well and could go close. 

Sagan himself will no doubt bully his way onto the right wheels before the last few corners to give him a shot of victory, and the technical nature of this final helps him. But, as always, will probably find a couple too hot for him on this flat finish. Sagan’s best chance for a win might be if the race breaks apart due to crosswinds on the coast – but that’s speculative. 

There’s nothing to suggest that Dylan Groenewegen won’t be the chosen man again for Jumbo–Visma, so we might as well forget about David Dekker getting his chance for now. That’s a shame as it would’ve been good to see if he could reproduce his form at the UAE Tour earlier in the year. The last couple of stages could’ve put valuable racing miles into Groenewegen’s considerable legs. Or they could’ve exposed his understandable lack of match fitness. The latter is more likely, so best to stay away. 

Giacomo Nizzolo was the best of the rest behind Merlier on stage 2 making it ten second places in the Giro without a win (though he did cross the finish line first on the final stage of the 2016 edition, only to be relegated). He’d be another popular winner, can he finally get his nose in front?

Obviously, if the race breaks up due to crosswinds then this could be anybody’s. But we have to assume there’ll be enough motivation and manpower from the sprint teams to keep it together. 

We’ve avoided any major disasters so far, which is unusual for the Giro. With the expected rainfall and technical final, let’s hope that continues and everyone gets over the line in one piece. 

Stage 5 Bets

Caleb Ewan 3pts win @10/3 (4.33)

Posted 20.16 BST Tue 11th May 2021