2015 Giro d'Italia Stage 6 Live Coverage
Welcome to our live coverage of Stage 6 of the 2015 Giro d'Italia! Our live profile and commentary are below, followed by a preview of the technical aspects of the route.
Course Preview
The ancient town of Montecatini Terme plays host to the start of a relatively flat stage 6. Look for this 181km route to favor the sprinters, but as always, one can never be sure how Giro stages can play out on the day. Pomance will see the only KOM point of the day. The first intermediate sprint comes early on in the stage, at 14.6km, in Altopascio. The second is in the town of Ribolla, 34km from the finish line.
Cioni said the middle part of the stage is quite tough, but all signs point to a sprint.
āThe sprintersā teams will hope that the break is quite small, because itās much easier to control that way,ā Cioni said. āIt goes up and down quite a bit in that middle section, but of course the teams will factor that in to how much time the break gets. The last thing they want is to have to chase hard on the hilly part, so they will keep them in range in order to ride that section tempo.
The GC picture will be starting to form now. They will have the Abetone stage in their legs, so the maglia rosa contendersā teams probably wonāt work. Therefore the onus is on teams who have a sprinter, but no GC ambitions. They have the most riding on it and they canāt afford to pass opportunities like this up. So one way or another itās all going to come back together for the finish.
Moment in time
The 1933 Giro was the most eagerly awaited yet. Cycling was immensely popular in Italy and the result was that the percorso was extended to 17 stages. The literacy programs of the 1920s had seen to it that more Italians could read the Gazzetta and the Giro was the best marketing tool at its disposal. Previously it had been the preserve of great cities like Milan, Turin, Rome and Naples, but now the paper spread its net. As such stage 5 would conclude in Grosseto. Back then the Giro was a highly parochial affair and internecine rivalries were its lifeblood. They were what kept the public interested and in 1933 the Giro had arguably the best one yet.
Alfredo Binda had been dominating cycling for the best part of a decade. Heād won four giri and such was his supremacy that the organizers had actually paid him not to take part in 1930. Now, however, a hugely popular new star threatened to usurp him in a mano a mano contest at the Giro. He was Learco āThe Human Locomotiveā Guerra and he entered the race as the newly crowned Italian champion.
When he dropped Binda magnificently on the road to Grosseto, the hordes who supported him cheered long and loud. Not only was it his third stage win, but Binda had been utterly trounced. A changing of the guard? Not quite. The following day Guerra crashed out and Binda claimed his fifth Giro after all.
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