Thought it was time to have a stand-alone thread as everything gets posted in the Tour de France thread & it looks a bit messy. Being the Premiere Event it deserves it's own place. I stopped short of a separate Giro & Vuelta thread as the interest could be limited.
Today we have due to the unique circumstances, 2 Grand Tours taking place at the same time. With the first stage of the Vuelta & The Giro into it's final week.
Roglic took the opening Vuelta stage, with Froome 11 minutes down.
Almeida has a 17 second lead over Kelderman after stage 16 of the Giro.
Marc Soler wins stage 2 of the Vuelta, Roglic retains the red jersey. Froome drops almost 20 minutes & now nearly 30 minutes off the pace. there has to be some doubt whether he'll finish the tour, surely a withdrawal looks likely.
No change in the Giro lead as Ben O'Conner claimed his 1st Grand Tour stage win.
Exciting Stage 18 of the Giro, as Wilko Kelderman is now the new race leader with his Sunweb team-mate Jai Hindley won the stage with Ineos Grenadiers Tao Geoghegen Hart a close 2nd & only 15 seconds down on GC.
Ireland's Dan Martin won Stage 3 of the Vuelta, as he our-sprinted Roglic & lies 2nd on GC, only 5 seconds down. Ineos Genadiers Carapaz is 3rd 15 seconds behind on GC.
Carthy finished 8th & moved up to 5th on GC. Froome finished 7 minutes back, & is 77th overall.
The Stelvio in the Giro is such an absolutely epic stage. Pity Tao didn’t win it but man of the day was Rohan Dennis whose efforts in support of Tao were brilliant.
Giro Stage 19 Morbegno to Asti, was shortened from 258km to 124 km, after riders protested that the length of the stage, held in wet & cold conditions, only a day after a brutal mountain stage, would compromise their immune systems. Race organisers were not happy about the outcome & I doubt we:ve heard the last of this.
Josef Cerny won the stage. Kelderman leads Sunweb team-mate Hindley by 12 seconds with Geoghegan Hart in 3rd 15 seconds back.
Sam Bennett wins stage 4 of the Vuelta, as Roglic leads on GC, 5 seconds ahead of Dan Martin.
Tao Geoghegan Hart take Stage 20 of the Giro & is now tied for the lead with Jai Hindley, Kelderman lost ground & lies 1.32 down.
Tim Wellens wins Stage 5 of the Vuelta. GC lead is unchanged.
It has to be said, totally blown away by the views on this stage from Huesca to Sabinanigo, always spectacular, but more so with the changing Autumn colours. You don't have to be a cycling fan to take pleasure from this scenery.