[ad_1]
Jai Hindley (Team Sunweb) or Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) will win the 2020 Giro d’Italia and the result will be decided by a 15.7km time trial in Milan on Sunday afternoon. Beyond that, nobody knows.
After 3,345.2 kilometers of running from Palermo to the Alps, through sun, wind, rain, cold and repeated COVID-19 coronavirus tests, Hindley and Geoghegan Hart remain locked in at the same time. The final week of this Giro featured nearly 40 percent of the total climb for the race, but neither Madonna di Campiglio nor Stelvio nor Sestriere were able to separate the pair.
Despite all the emphasis on the high mountains as the great referee of the Giro, the race, or at least the head-to-head competition of Geoghegan Hart and Hindley, will finally be decided on 10 flat miles through the streets of Milan. It is the equivalent of a penalty shootout at the end of a 3-3 tie.
the pink fever it’s been nearly unreadable since it started at Monreale three weeks ago, and now it feels reckless to make predictions of risk. Their respective pedigree against the clock suggest that Geoghegan Hart should prevail and strip Hindley of the Pink sweater in the end, but a time trial at the end of a Grand Tour is not about what you have done before, but what you have left.
Just three days ago, while still officially in the service of his Sunweb teammate Wilco Kelderman, Hindley was eager to downplay his ability to test time, insisting it was still a work in progress. However, after taking on Kelderman’s pink jersey over Sestriere on Saturday, the Aussie hit a different note.
“It’s the last day of a three-week race and you never know what’s going to happen,” Hindley said. “You never know how your legs will feel when you wake up tomorrow morning. That’s the beauty of the Giro d’Italia, it’s a very tough race. “
While Hindley looked relaxed during her first press conference at the Pink sweater – “Good question,” he exclaimed at one point – Geoghegan Hart, stage winner at Sestriere, was more professional. His Ineos Grenadier team convinced the organization to translate all of their responses at the end of the conference, which meant that Geoghegan Hart was in and out of the video truck after just four minutes.
“I think I showed my legs in the TT at the last TT,” said Geoghegan Hart, who won 2.2 seconds per kilometer at Hindley in the Valdobbiadene time trial a week ago. “We will see what happens tomorrow, we will give everything and what will be, will be.”
The situation
With Filippo Ganna and Rohan Dennis on board, the Ineos grenadiers are in line for their seventh Giro stage win (a third of the event total) in Sunday’s 15.7km test, but the team’s main focus It will be Geoghegan Hart’s starting point 4: 9:00 p.m. local time. Hindley will be coming down the exit ramp three minutes later, with the only official check of the intermediate time coming after 10.7km, just as the riders are approaching the center of Milan before the final race towards Piazza del Duomo.
Three weeks ago in Palermo, Hindley was 49 seconds faster than Geoghegan Hart in the opening 15.1km time trial, largely downhill, although the Briton started later, and apparently, in less favorable wind conditions. The time will be the same for both men in Milan. They will both wear leather suits provided by the organization instead of their outfits: Geoghegan Hart dons the white jersey, while Hindley wears pink. In the meantime, the nature of the course is sure to remind Geoghegan Hart of a familiar British staple: the 10-mile time trial.
“You could lose two or three seconds per kilometer with a specialist on a course like this,” race director Mauro Vegni warned before the Giro, although in this case, of course, the eventual champion only needs to gain one more second of almost 16 kilometres.
Margins couldn’t be tighter. In fact, they never have been before. Never in the history of the Giro did the two best riders enter the last day at the same time. Of course, there have been many dramatic final time trials in race history: Moser and Fignon in 1984, Menchov and Di Luca in 2009, Hesjedal and Rodríguez in 2012, as well as Dumoulin, Nibali and Quintana three years ago.
The final narrowest gap in the history of the Giro was Fiorenzo Magni’s 11-second margin over Ezio Cecchi in 1948, although in a situation like Sunday one thinks of Laurent Fignon’s eight-second loss to Greg LeMond on the Tour. from France in 1989. Or perhaps Tadej Pogačar’s defeat over Primož Roglič in the Tour last month.
On Sunday, Hindley wears the pink jersey and Geoghegan Hart wears the expectation, but neither of them can afford to feel the weight of that burden. The opportunity of a lifetime has presented itself.
Head to head
Since turning pro in 2017, Hindley and Geoghegan Hart have met in nine time trials, two of them at this Giro. Although there are so many variables at stake, the record books are troubling read for Hindley fans.
Geoghegan Hart has come out on top seven times and he will argue that one of those two losses, early stage here, was because he started out as a domestique of Geraint Thomas and didn’t give it his all.
Hindley has managed to limit the damage in the more mountainous terrain, but the Briton has been able to dominate it to a great extent in the flat, which is what we have for the full 15.7km in Milan. However, he will cheer up with the recent Tirreno-Adriatico TT and wait Pink sweater It can take you to new heights.
Tour of California 2018 – stage 4
34.7 km, largely flat
1. Geoghegan Hart: 3rd place, 41:19
2. Hindley: 48th place, 44:04 (+2: 45)
Itzulia Basque Country 2018 – stage 4
19.4km, flat
1. Geoghegan Hart: 36, 23:43
2: Hindley: 9, 24:57 (+1: 14)
Tour of Spain 2018 – stage 1
8km, flat with little climb
1. Geoghegan Hart: 18, 10:03
2. Hindley: 102nd, 10:31 (+0: 31)
Tour of Spain 2018 – stage 16
32 km, hills
1. Hindley: 76, 42:26
2. Geoghegan Hart: 87, 42:43 (+17 seconds)
Giro d’Italia 2019 – stage 1
8km, flat with strong final climb
1. Geoghegan Hart: 7, 13:29
2. Hindley: 74, 14:25 (+56 seconds)
Giro d’Italia 2019 – stage 9
34.8 km, flat start with the last 12 km mostly uphill
1. Geoghegan Hart: 25, 54:41
2. Hindley: 52nd, 56:14 (+1: 33)
Tirreno-Adriatico 2020 – stage 8
10.1km, flat
1. Geoghegan Hart: 31, 11:42
2. Hindley: 41, 11:48 (+0: 06)
Giro d’Italia 2020 – stage 1
15.1 km, short ascent, rapid descent, flat finish
1. Hindley: 46, 16:39
2. Geoghegan Hart: 126, 17:28 (+0: 49)
Giro d’Italia 2020 – stage 13
34.1 km, rolling
1. Geoghegan Hart: 13, 45:04
2. Hindley: 34, 46:19 (+1: 15)
