Tag Archives: giro d’italia

Reasons to be cheerful in Melbourne…Take 2

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT has been floating around on cloud nine since last Saturday. Two near miraculous events occurred. The first, back to back premierships for MMT’s favourite AFL team, the rampaging Richmond Tigers. The second Jai Hindley took and briefly held the Maglia Rosa in the 2020 Giro d’Italia.

MMT will focus Giro result first. Eventually, Hindley finished second overall. Geoghegan-Hart from Team INEOS took 40 seconds off Hindley on the final stage’s time trial to cliche the title. The result was the best ever result for an Australian, surpassing Cadel Evan‘s third back in 2013. All the more remarkable, as it was the a 24-year-old’s third Grand Tour start and he had been riding as a domestique for team-mate Wilco Kelderman, in the midst of a pandemic. So to honour Jai Hindley, here’s a picture of the man himself, dressed up in Pink.

Here’s the man of the moment…Jai Hindley.

Before MMT moves on he should also point to the astonishing performances of two other Australians at the Giro, Rohan Dennis (INEOS Grenadiers) and Ben O’Connor (NTT Pro Cycling). Rohan Dennis practically towed Tao Geoghegan-Hart through the mountain stages of the last week and set up the Brit’s Giro victory. Ben O’Connor an unheralded West Australian, won the mountain stage 17. A big chapeau!! to both rouleurs.

Now the other reason, Richmond’s win in the 2020 Grand Final, was all the more surprising given the Geelong Cat’s 3 goal advantage in the second quarter. MMT had gave up that point and turned the telly off. MMT has been repremanded a number of times by team management (aka his wife) for loud and ‘blue’ language that might wake the team’s junior members.

Opps this photo may have been ‘acquired’ from somewhere else 😉

So near 3/4 quarter time, MMT looks at the AFL app on this mobile phone and discovers, much to his disbelief, that the Tigers are now 2 points up…WTF…you beauty. Of course, the man of the moment was Dustin Martin, who kicked 4 goals on his way to a 3rd Norm Smith medal. In years to come the pundits will talk about how good this guy is. And to think the Tiges very nearly traded him to the Giants back in 2016. MMT thinks the Tiges dodged a bullet. Martin may be the million dollar man at Richmond, but few would argue that he’s not worth it.

Anyhooo…MMTis getting all misty eyed about the Tiges and its good time to sign off. One more thing….MMT has completed 9,000km in year for the first time…woo hoo 😉

Until next time, keep safe, ride safe and go Tiges,

MMT

More infographics as I’ve been too busy to write a proper blog…

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Dear Roulers,

I’ve been way too busy in the last few weeks as I’ve become a Dad.  OMG……another team member for MMT 🙂  Born 11 June this year, it might be a few years before she receives her first bike.  Both mum and bub are doing well.  However, sleep deprivation is now becoming a serious issue :-).

So MMT has been a long time fan of the infographic, some are clever, some are well designed, others merely exist to communicate to attention challenged Gen Y.  Fortunately this infographic pillaged from the official Giro d’Italia site falls firmly into the clever and well designed categories.  Its just a damn shame that this didn’t end on some merchandise.  Presumably it wasn’t Armani enough.

This one of the more clever stage profile and map that I've seen. Pity the race organisers didn't put this on a cap or t-shirt.

This one of the more clever stage profile and map that I’ve seen. Pity the race organisers didn’t put this wonderful graphic on a cap or t-shirt.

You can find it here at the official Giro site, but fair warning this website is a dog’s breakfast and doesn’t play well with older browsers.  Come to think of it that’s typically Italian.

Until next, ride safe in the ghastly winter weather, particularly if you live in Melbourne.

Marv

2016 Giro Italia…what a race!!!

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Dear Rouleurs,

Unfortunately, MMT is currently off the bike and out of action with what would have to be the worst ailment a cyclist can possibly have, bar bulging disks in the lower back, broken bones or face planting on Belgian pave and knocking out  all your front teeth.  Notwithstanding that piece of whingeing, how about the Giro 2016 edition??   With nine different race leaders and a thrilling last week in the mountains, that was epic.  Man I can’t wait for the centenary version next year.

Estaban Chaves crosses the finish line of Stage 18.

Estaban Chaves crosses the finish line of Stage 18.

Estban Chaves take a bow, to achieve second behind the wily Vincenzo Nibali was an incredible result.  MMT once wonders how long before he becomes a naturalised Australian citizen.  My guess is that Columbia won’t be too keen to let him go.  Neither will Orica-GreenEdge, who for the first time in their team’s existence, have a genuine General Classification (GC) rider for the Grand tours.

Chaves, Nibali and Valverde on the Giro Podium in Torino.

Chaves, Nibali and Valverde on the Giro Podium in Torino.

Speaking of genuine GC riders, chapeau!!! Vincenzo Nibali.  I thought Nibali was gone after a horrendous mechanical failure on  stage 15’s  uphill time trial, and again in Stage 18, both Kruijiswik and Chaves put time into Nibali.  So Nibali’s comeback in  winning stages 19 and 20 back to back was an astonishing effort.  I guess it’s the old adage of never write off a champion. Also, he showed genuine sportsmanship in greeting Estban Chaves’s parents at the stage 20 finish line.

I also had to feel for Stephen Kruijswijk.  If he had more support through the mountain stages and hadn’t had such an awful crash on stage 19’s descent on Colle dell’Agnello. He may well have beaten  both  of them.  For example, if had rider like Astana’s Scarponi, up the road and able to assist the eventual stage winner Nibali, this could have been an against all the odds Dutch victory.

The dreaded Maglia Nera as designed by Pinarello.

The dreaded Maglia Nera as designed by Pinarello.

Finally, I would like to talk up the return of the Maglia Nera, the jersey awarded to the last placed rider in the GC.  The jersey was only awarded to riders between 1946 and 1951.  As there was a prize,  riders  would sometimes deliberately waste time in order to become last overall.  More importantly, it’s a really cool looking  jersey that those of us drafting at the back of the peloton would happily wear.  This year the unofficial title was ‘won’ by Australia’s own Jack Bobridge of Trek-Segafredo.

Bring back the Maglia Nera!!!!

Until next time,

MMT

2015 Giro d’Italia Results – Where did the Aussies finish?

Dear Roulers,

This post took a lot longer to write than I thought.  In fact this could be the only list of its type on the WWW.  I had to fish through the individual stage results to figure out, who DNS and DNF amongst the Aussie contingent.

So to do a quick recap, the 2015 Giro started May 9 an finished three weeks later on Sunday, May 31.  The riders that finished completed a course of 3481km long averaging 165km a day.  It included:

  • six mountain finishes and three other testing days of climbing
  • six stages for the sprinters,
  • a 59.2km individual time trial, and
  • kicked off with a 17.6km team time trial.

Of the 196 riders that started only 163 finished.

20150619-AContadorWinner

 

The race was won by Alberto Contador (above in case you can’t recognise him) and the Lanterne Rouge, place 163, was Marco Coledan (Ita) of  Trek Racing, who finished 6:40:13 behind.

20150619-Chris-FroomeWinner

 

I wonder if Contador will be able to go the double given Chris Froome’s performance in this week’s  Critérium du Dauphiné.  I’m counting the days until the Tour de France.

 Place Name Country Team
1 Alberto Contador Spain Tinkoff-Saxo 88:22:25
2 Fabio Aru Italy Astana Pro Team 0:01:53
3 Mikel Landa Meana Spain Astana Pro Team 0:03:05
4 Andrey Amador Costa Rica Movistar Team 0:08:10
5 Ryder Hesjedal Canada Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycling Team 0:09:52
6 Leopold Konig Czech Republic Team Sky 0:10:41
7 Steven Kruijswijk Netherlands Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:10:53
8 Damiano Caruso Italy BMC Racing Team 0:12:08
9 Alexandre Geniez France FDJ.fr 0:15:51
10 Yury Trofimov Russia Team Katusha 0:16:14
 Place These guys finished
33 Michael Rogers Australia Tinkoff-Saxo 2:11:06
63 Simon Clarke Australia Orica-GreenEdge 3:20:33
77 Adam Hansen Australia Lotto Soudal 3:49:51
107 Heinrich Haussler Australia IAM Cycling 4:43:01
109 Luke Durbridge Australia Orica-GreenEdge 4:50:24
122 Sam Bewley Australia Orica-GreenEdge 5:10:21
128 Brett Lancaster Australia Orica-GreenEdge 5:18:55
151 Calvin Watson Australia Trek Factory Racing 5:56:12
160 Michael Hepburn Australia Orica-GreenEdge 6:13:16
These guys didn’t
Retired Stage 12 Simon Gerrans Australia  Orica-GreenEdge
Retired Stage 13 Michael Matthews Australia  Orica-GreenEdge
Retired Stage 15 Richie Porte Australia Team Sky