Giro Donne 2011 - a Stelvio-Mortirolo double?
The official launch of the Giro Donne is tomorrow morning, Saturday 2nd April at the Monza Autodrome Museum, but Tuttobici has a couple of well sourced leaks/whoops didn't see the embargo sign discretions. The race looks likely to start in Rome, finish in Torino, and include a stage that ascends both the Stelvio and the Mortirolo. Let the bell ring for Abbott vs Pooley, Round 2.
about 1 year ago
Monty.
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If the Stelvio/Mortirolo thing is an April fool...
… I will personally hunt down and slaughter everyone involved.
It's funny...
… the first thing I saw when I saw the profile of the Mortirolo stage was relief it wasn’t an MTF (although I couldn’t see how such a thing was going to be possible anyway). So I was pleased with that, but then I noticed they weren’t climbing up the classic side and was a tiny bit disappointed. Still a good stage, though.
But I was more disappointed when I saw the profile of the next stage. I’d kind of convinced myself (against all my better judgment) that they’d be crossing the Gavia, so to see not much of interest before the MTF was a bit of a blow. But now I’m having a chance to reflect I’m a bit more positive. The final climb is this:
http://www.salite.ch/9500/9878.gif
Having had a look at some Panoramio photos via Google Maps, it seems that the final 4km or so are on a (very well-surfaced) sterrato section, which would be ace. But there’s no mention of that in the Giro website’s blurb, which you’d think there would be. It’s also not clear if they’re going all the way to the top of that climb – the (absolutely awful) Giro stage profile indicates they might only go up as far as 7.3km or 7.7km on that climb profile. We’ll see I suppose.
Still not enamoured at all by the stage to Ceresole Reale, but at least we’ve known about that one for a while so it’s less of a blow. Not enough ITT for my liking either.
But like I said down below, stages two and three are such beauties that they make up for the flaws. Definitely a good route, not sure if I like it as much as last year’s yet though.
Last year's was very special though
and they had that Lake (Como?) stage that looked benign & quite fun on the profile, but turned into a thigh-eating day of doom for the riders…. was that the Evie Stevie day?
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 5:27 PM EDT up reply actions
There was a stage that Marianne Vos won
when they rode around the lake then up a very steep hill that wasn’t on the profile to the finish line. That was the one where Cicloweb said that Evie made Emma P look good on the descents. Then there was the stage she won over the Madonna del Ghisallo when the US team did a TTT along the first few km beside lake Como.
Ah yes, the Vos stage
I remember the blogs laughing (afterwards) about how the race organisers hadn’t thought the next few Alpine stages weren’t hard enough, so they added in some more climbs just for fun!
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 5:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Bit difficult to do Mortirolo from the direction of Stelvio then Gavia. Maybe they descend from Mortirolo in the direction of Ponte di Legno and climb Gavia after that? Then should it be the easy finish of a Bormio 2000 MTF or make them do the Mortirolo and Aprica after that (with optional Santa Cristina bonus action)?
by UrlaubinPolen on Apr 1, 2011 12:54 PM EDT up reply actions
yeah, it just depends which side you pick
To do the “hard” side of Mortirolo, it would work better to go Stelvio, Mortirolo, Gavia I guess (which also would do the best side of Gavia
moo
So does this mean they're coming down that hard side?
Descending that really evil, narrow, steep, twisty climb? Ouch, even if you’re not Emma Pooley or Evie Stevens.
Luckily for Pooley and Evie Stevie (and everyone else)...
… no. They’re climbing this side:
http://cyclingcols.com/profiles/MortiroloE.gif
and descending this side:
http://cyclingcols.com/profiles/MortiroloN.gif
Which means that they will have nothing to do with this side:
http://cyclingcols.com/profiles/MortiroloW.gif
It’s still technical, and steep (and probably narrow, why not), but small mercies eh.
When i cycled the classic side
I descended the side they will descend
and it is still steep and at times pretty tricky …. but certainly easier and wider than the classic side.
moo
If this is true, it is officially the #2 reason I am so pissed womens cycling has no TV coverage
I would killlllll to see Abbot vs. Pooley on this stage.
My fruit bowl is full of sex wax--gavia
Wow. Just, wow.
How the he’ll did I leave Abbot off my team this year. Riding away from Pooley in the high mountains. Damn.
by Ed K on Apr 2, 2011 8:56 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Yes! Another reason to adore the Giro!
Happy, happy, happy, happy me!
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions
So according to Tuttobiciweb, it's...
Stage 1: Roma – Velletri
Stage 2: Pescocostanzo – Pescocostanzo
Stage 3: Potenza Picena – Fermo (Marina)
Stage 4: Forlimpopoli – Forlì
Stage 5: Altedo – Verona
Stage 6: Fontanellato – Piacenza
Stage 7: Rovato – Grosotto (Mortirolo)
Stage 8: Teglio – Valdidentro
Stage 9: Aglié – Ceresola Reale
Stage 10: San Francesco al Campo (16 km ITT)
So is that a MTF on the Mortirolo? Or descending to Grosotto? Or maybe only going up as high as 9.5 km? My guess would be they’re going up the “easy” side. Surely no Stelvio involved anyway.
There is the potential
for a Mortirolo-Gavia double on the stage to Valdidentro. Probbaly getting my hopes up though, just like I said I wouldn’t.
I need maps and altimetries!
Another thing:
I can’t see how the transfer between stages eight and nine isn’t going to be utterly ridiculous.
The maps and altimetries are up now
here (warning, it loads slowly): http://www.girodonne.it/portale/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=19&Itemid=145
The high mountains are disappointing – Edolo side of the Mortirolo (a shame, but otherwise a nice stage), and two MTFs with little to get excited about before the final few kilometres. However, I think stages three and four actually make up for this. Amazing stages.
And by stages three and four
I do of course mean stages two and three.
by Skip Madness on Apr 2, 2011 10:17 AM EDT up reply actions
Stage 3 looks as if it is tracing
the 7 Muri Fermani, the race that Marina Romoli’s dad has a large hand in organising. Coincidentally that was launched last night too, but the map is not yet on line. That’s the race that is accompanied by a Gran Fondo that they try to sell as “our Flanders”
There's a promo video up
over at Ciclonews.it for the Muri Fermani, where Gibo Simoni, Giorgia Bronzini amd Claudio Chiappucci among others ride the course. And at one moment when they turn off on to an old cobbled track they say that that will be on the women’s race too, so they could have moved on from the five-times-around-the-carpark model of last year
Hopefully!
Funnily enough stage three is exactly how I imagined last year’s women’s Muri was going to look… before I actually saw the profile.
Loads slowly?
the Italians don’t seem to have got the concept of thumbnail images yet. That whole page is almost 20 megs, which will take over an hour an a half to load if you’re on dial-up.
Curses
I already went and saved all the stuff I wanted as files I thought would be more manageable. Wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known someone else was going to do it for me!
The Giro also seems to have not one but two mascots
see this piccie from Ciclonews – A skydiver with a ponytail on top of an Italian flag, and a rather nice stylised bicycle
Zdenek Stybar may not have got his flute solo
but the Giro organisers even wrote a song for Marina. No links to the song itself so far.
This is a reason I love this race
They cover all the angles!
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions
A (vague) little comparison
the toughest six climbs of the 2011 Giro versus the toughest half dozen from 2010:
2010 had:
Stelvio – 21.9km/7.1%
Maloja – 32.0 km/4.6%
Sormano – 12.4km/7.5%
Madonna del Ghisallo – 10.6km/5.2%
Bernina – 16.0km/3.6%
Eira – 6.2km/6.4%
2011 has:
Mortirolo 17.1km/6.8%
Torri di Fraele 8.8km/7%
Ceresole Reale 16.5km/5.3%
Passo San Leonardo 19km/4.6%
Bosco Sant’Antonio 9.4km/5.3%
Le Motte 3.1km/7.9%
It’s not a massive gulf but 2010 was clearly tougher in the high mountains. The high mountain stages were also designed a bit better in 2011, but the difficulty is more spaced out this year, and in terms of offering exciting racing, Fermo and Pescocostanzo might beat Lago d’Orta.
It seems a bit less of a stright split between sprinters & climbers than last year
Last year it felt like it was designed so the first 4 stages were all for the sprinty types, and then the climbs came one day after another, getting progressively harder, with no rest. I know, I know, there is no actual rest day, but it seemed designed to warm up for the climbers. Not sure if that perception was because Ina Teutenberg was so dominant, but it must’ve been lovely for Abbott & Pooley, giving them warm-ups for Stelvio….. and horrible for the poor sprinters, who, once they finished “their” stages had to slog through the worse & worse mountains if they wanted to get to the final sprint stage…
I love that they vary the race so much – gives us lots of time to analyse – thanks so much for the stats, Skip, I appreciate it!
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions
Interesting point.
2008 followed the 2010 model regarding flat at the beginning/tough at the end, whereas 2011 is more like 2009. Still, I expect a few sprinters will think about buggering off after stage six.
I didn’t actually like the way the stages got progressively tougher last year – better in my opinion to get a couple of really big stages in the middle of the race, then have less extreme stuff at the end. It’s a risk to put the big stages right at the end, because there’s the problem that riders will go conservatively in prior stages for fear of messing up before the big one. Luckily the women don’t ride half as conservatively as the men, so it’s less of an issue, but it’s still something I think they ought to try to negate.
Another interesting (well, that’s debatable) thing is that they’ve managed to keep to the plan of including the South (OK, the Centre, but it’s South of the North) in alternating editions.
Not sure what 2010 looked like, but for me it’s not just the toughness of climbs but how many are at the finish or near the finish that defines the difficulty of a race/stage
thoughts? 2010 vs 2011
moo
2010 really was stacked towards the end
The first four or five stages were totally flat, then the hills got tougher and tougher right up to the Stelvio stage. But the hilly stages were really well designed, possibly because they don’t have to look for the nearest town with 100,000+ inhabitants to stick the finish line. But I think that l’Aude beat them in the “find the smallest place” stakes last year when they started from a place that officially had 67 inhabitants.
Not sure.
In terms of sticking the big climb at the end of the stage, it happens more this year. I think 2010 still comes out on top for sheer difficulty though. The thing is, the Sormano and the Maloja came early in their respective stages last year, but that just turned up the heat early on. Whereas we can virtually guarantee no attacks before the final climb to Ceresole and few/none before Torri di Fraele, although it’s a tough finishing climb. Mortirolo’s different, that’ll cause a big selection all on its own.
I reckon difficulty often comes in intensity, which is why stage two this year is such a good design. The climbs aren’t huge but they’re well placed and offer little respite.
heh, when you say "virtually guarantee no attacks"
I did laugh, imagining Emma Pooley! She had shocking luck on at least 1 stage last year (think it was the Stelvio stage where she’d punctured at least once, chased back to the first group, then just went straight past them up some ridiculous incline…. Abbott took her on & won, but I couldn’t imagine being, eg Tatiana Guderzo, or one of the other riders known for being good climbers, who were fighting just to stay together, and every time the road hairpinned, seeing this little figure get closer, closer, closer….. and just go straight past! I’m impressed they didn’t stop for a little cry, because that would have demoralised me completely! ;-) )
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 6:38 PM EDT up reply actions
That happened on the Sormano at least
that was the day she ended up in a state, wasn’t it? But it shows what I mean, the Sormano made stuff happen. If they’d just made it a MTF on the Sormano, we’d have had 12km of racing, instead we had 80-odd, including about 40 km or whatever it was of Evie Stevie awesome.
I’m thinking of the Stelvio stage, but yeah, she had another shocking day on Sormano too….
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 6:58 PM EDT up reply actions
I think that Emma's problem on the Stelvio
was the usual crap descending.
I was hoping that
they’d go back to Cerro al Volturno
They do seem to be good at the "alternating" years thing
and that’s a good thing – because now it’s the only big Tour on the calendar (they’re not allowed any more races over 7 days without special permission – the Giro, L’Aude & Grand Boucle were the exceptions to the “new” (I think) UCI rules, so losing the other two means this is it, the nearest to a Grand Tour we can have – so it’s extra good that the organisers are thinking about making it different each year, to give more riders a chance, both in terms of winning stages (when Ina doesn’t scupper that plan! ;-) ) and knowing that if last year was going to be all about the über-climbers (which is why Vos finishing top 10 was so impressive, as she’s not a mountain goat) then this year could give other riders a chance for some glory
by Sarah Connolly on Apr 2, 2011 6:17 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not sure how "new" these rules are
and you’d need a shelf full of UCI regulations from the year dot to get a definitive answer. The rules say something like (like as in I’m not checking exactly) “maximum 7 days or what it was in 2005” then 2005 says “maximum 7 days or what it was in 1996” and, I guess, so on. I’m not sure either that they would object if the Route de France or Thuringen wanted to extend beyond the 7 day limit, I just don’t know how bureaucratic/expensive that would be.
Actually thinking about it
the Route de France usually does start off with a calendar date of eight or nine days. OK they never manage it, but they do plan it.
They've already
designed their poster, and I’m sure I read something about heading towards Germany for this year’s finish.
I've never been clear on that "new" events thing.
Take the Setmana Valenciana. If it had got going, it would be a new event, so six days or less, sure. But is it still a new event in 2015? Does “new” mean “post-2004”, or “in its first year”?
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