After a tough opening weekend for the punchers and the classification men, the sprinters can wake up today. At the beginning of this week they get four chances, but there are pitfalls on the course almost every day. Is it being made too difficult for pure-bred sprinters? The protagonists provide nuance.
Flat stages with a classic (and boring) course are not popular with race organizers and cycling enthusiasts. The solution: throw a few obstacles on the course, especially in the final, so that things can go either way.
The interventions increase the spectacle value, but the course designers are increasingly challenging sprinters such as Tim Merlier and Fabio Jakobsen. The more kinks and hills, the more their speed and power diminishes.
“That it is not made easy for us? Yes, but they have an Italian sprinter here who is good at those things,” chuckles Tim Merlier.
The Soudal-Quick Step sprinter is referring to Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek). “That must have something to do with it, right?”
“These are not easy finishes this week, but it is not impossible. It must still be feasible, especially at this stage of the Giro. Maybe it will become more difficult in the 2nd or 3rd week.”
Tough finals? It probably has something to do with the fact that they have an Italian sprinter here who is good at that.
Tim Merlier
But how much has the first weekend already affected the bodies of the sprinters? Merlier: “I can only be satisfied. I let it go where I wanted and I haven’t been unloaded yet. That unloading will follow.”
“We were able to save ourselves quite a bit. We never got into trouble,” added pilot and buddy Bert Van Lerberghe.
“This morning I got up with stress for the first time,” the sprint leader admitted.
“It was the first meeting where you almost shake out of your body from the stress. Then you know that you will sprint, but you do it for that feeling.”
A hill
Fabio Jakobsen also lives on the billiard-flat stages and knows that his chances are mortgaged by the banana peels and the altitude meters.
“Today it will be fifty-fifty,” estimates the Dutch sprint bomb from DSM-Firmenich PostNL.
“It is not an easy final today, especially in this peloton. It goes up for a kilometer and a half and the legs will be full. Then I have to see what sprint I can still squeeze out.”
“We have already been able to test the climbers’ legs this weekend. Today’s final will then feel like a small hill.”
“But one and a half kilometers up: that is doable in the peloton, but what sprint do you have left? Especially in this Giro. They are flying up here. The level is very high.”
Giro d’Italia
