Tomorrow the last Monument of the season: Bartoli, Cunego Bettini and Nibali analyze the favourites. Ganna makes his debut
All at the blackboard, the gentlemen of the Giro di Lombardia enter the room. Since 2009, nine Italian victories in 21 editions with four riders who have achieved it at least twice: Michele Bartoli (2002 and 2003), Damiano Cunego (2004, 2007 and 2008), Paolo Bettini (2005 and 2006) and the double of Vincenzo Nibali, 2015 and 2017. Good times. On the first bench, the three big favorites of tomorrow: Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel. The Classic of dead leaves has lost Giulio Ciccone, too sore after the fall in the Tre Valli, but has found Filippo Ganna, who will be making his debut. Yesterday’s big names took the chalk and wrote their votes on the blackboard to choose the king.
Who is the most strategist? Who has the best condition to support 238 km and 4400 meters of altitude? Can Pogacar make it three in a row? How much is the team worth? And will the teammates be faithful to Roglic, who will go to the German Bora in 2024 (announcement today)? The calculator gives the total: Roglic wins Lombardy with 5 points over Pogacar (101.5 to 96), further behind Evenepoel (88), a surprise.
the shark
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“Bergamo’s Lombardy can decide on the Ganda climb: yes, right where I attacked two years ago, giving the impetus to… Pogacar to make the difference – explains Vincenzo Nibali, 38 years old -. Tadej hasn’t seemed super to me in the last few races, but he can invent anything. As well as Evenepoel, who is sometimes truly ‘immarkable’ on a dry day. While Roglic has already won Emilia other times but without then shining at Lombardia: they are different races. He is very wait-and-see on the tactical front, but he has the strongest block: it is the year of the Jumbo, he does what he wants and could place more men in the 10 and close the UCI ranking of the teams at number 1″.
The cricket
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Paolo Bettini, who is 49 years old, has no doubts about Roglic’s name: “He is the old man among these young phenomena, but he has more experience. Pogacar didn’t convince me as a condition at the Tre Valli and even at Emilia he didn’t make a difference: he’s not the Tadej we know.” He is very strict with Evenepoel: “He has little strategy, he wins and wins big when everything goes well for him, he pushes the watts and leaves everyone behind, but this is not tactics. He is a phenomenon, but he lacks the skill, and if you put pressure on him he loses his logic. And then the condition: he hasn’t raced in the Vuelta for a month, and I don’t like it, because then he becomes unpleasant, so he goes back to targeted cycling. And then will the team that is merging with Jumbo be all for him? In any case, Remco is so strong that he can win, because like Liege he has Lombardy in his DNA.”
Flanders lion
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Michele Bartoli, 53 years old, Bettini’s great rival and specialist in the Northern classics, is a successful coach/preparator: “The fittest is Roglic, and compared to Pogacar and Evenepoel, who are more ‘adrenaline-driven’, it seems to me that has something more on a tactical level as well. He hardly moves randomly. We know little about Evenepoel’s condition, while Pogacar can count on the most competitive team, more than Jumbo itself. Pay attention to the Soudal-Quick Step: as shown by Van Wilder at the Tre Valli and by Bagioli at the Gran Piemonte, they have extra motivation”.
little Prince
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Damiano Cunego, 42 years old, is taking two exams for his degree in Sports Science: “Roglic intrigues me the most, he plays the strategy well and at Emilia he is the only one who did the sprint with his hands down. Pogacar didn’t have an ideal approach but he has infinite class, even without the super-condition he finishes 2nd, and has the strongest group. I met Evenepoel many times in Livigno training alone, he knows how to prepare, but the team seems inferior to me.”
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