As for my predictions I had covered 2/3 of the podium, alas the winner alluded me (and to be fair every other commentator/fan and indeed probably the rider himself). I also predicted Nibali would go early.
The race has been covered by cycling news and other sites, so I won’t give a blow by blow account. There was the mandatory early breakaway of ~8 riders which at points had an advantage of 8 minutes! They where reeled in on the descent of the Colma Di Sormano and another, much more dangerous breakaway group formed on this descent which included Nibali, Gilbert and Fulsang. This group maintained a gap of about minute on the flat to the Ghisallo, so far so good.
On the Ghisalla, around 50 km from the finish, the race was blown apart by the excellent Vincenzo Nibali. He attacked with powerful moves on 2/3 occasions, with the first resulting in a group of the three favourites, his final acceleration managing to convincingly drop Gilbert. He powered away on the ascent and descent opening a gap that varied between 1-2 minutes. Alas, he was caught on the 16 flat km to the final climb of the day.
Many reports have been quite critical about Nibali's move; saying that there was no way it could have worked. Whilst this is mainly true, it does benefit strongly from hindsight. Indeed this interview with Nibali confirms the suspicions I had on the day. We have to here remember that cycling is usually quite a predictable sport, and looking at the final climb of this race shows that it is Gilbert territory, indeed we has been unbeatable on this terrain since he won this race last year. Given this, Nibali's move made a lot of sense; he really didn’t want Gilbert on his wheel when he came to the last climb of the day. As we now know Gilbert didn’t have the legs.
If Nibali had saved his energy to the last climb, I am convinced he would have won this race easily. Still it was a very brave, that if it had worked would have been of the legendry stories in the history of this race. Credit has to be given to Nibali; this is the sort of cycling that fans love.
This brings me onto a more sour note. This as I stated in my preview is one of the grandest races in cycling, worthy of full respect. This respect was not given by the HTC team; in fact there participation in this race was nothing short of a joke. Each team was allocated 8 riders for this race, only 6 of HTC's actually turned up! Then to add insult to injury out of those 6 rides only 1 finished! This, quite frankly, is a complete piss take, especially given the number of Pro-continental teams, who would have loved to be in this race and whom would have made much more of an effort! One the two riders who didn't turn up at the start line was Cavendish, the world champion. The decision for him not to start was "justified" by the team; however it was a very poor choice. I can understand that Cav didn’t want to insult the race by giving up 50-60 km in, but I think the greater insult to the race was not to turn up. Everyone understands that Cav will never win a race like this but cycling fans always appreciate riders effort despite there end results. Cav is a major figure in the sport, especially in the English speaking world, where cycling is still not a major sport. Therefore him coming to the race will direct attention to a race, disproportionally so from non traditional cycling countries, even if he had climbed off I guess it would have still been covered by say the BBC. This in turn is good for the sport, as it gives a larger audience to its most predigious and best races.
Anyway, moving on. Nibali was caught with 13 out of the 16 km flat section done, due to the good work of Team Sky. I do have to confess, at first during the race, I was extremely displeased with Sky, but to be fair they were trying to set up the race for Uran, who had a good chance of winning. It was a shame Uran did not have the legs to reward Sky for their efforts and in hindsight maybe, Cummings/ Lovkvist would have been the better option (or Froome, I was surprised he wasn’t selected). With the main field back together, there was only the final climb, the Villa Vergano to decide the winner.
This set up the race for an excellent finale. The attacks came thick and fast, however the work by Sky and then Basso destroyed the field, setting up Oliver Zaugg perfectly, with his acceleration distancing the others. It was here the biggest surprise came, with Gilbert dropping out the back of the group. With Gilbert gone the race was completely open. Zaugg managed to excellently hold off the casing groups down the descent and across the twisty, flat last km to get a well deserved and executed victory, the First of his career. What a way to get your first win.
The podium was rounded off by Dan Martin and Joaquim Rodríguez (frustratingly adding another podium to his collection). This was a good end to Martin's good year and shows he is maturing into a very good bike rider. He just needs to be more confident in his ability and to think much more tactically. If he had waited, like Zaugg, he may have done it.
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