The second stage of the Giro d’Italia, the first road stage, takes place today between Arnhem and Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The stage covers 190km and will almost certainly be contested by a big sprint finish with the peloton arriving together at the end of the stage.
Giro d’Italia Stage 2 – The route
The route today is in an anti-clockwise direction and is almost completely flat.
This will likely be a traditional Grand Tour stage with the wildcard teams and teams without an overall challenger vying to get into a breakaway. This gains exposure for their sponsors and potentially can lead to the opportunity to go for a stage win IF the peloton mistime the chase to the finish line.
We think the breakaways chances of success are highly unlikely. Too many teams have sprinters that they wish to see at the front of the race come the end. They will closely control the breakaway and bring the race back together within the last 20kms. From there the front of the peloton with be full-on flat-out racing with teams jockeying for position to give their sprinter the best chance of winning.
The final 5kms will be ridden at 100% with teams trying to align their sprint lead-out trains. I have a feeling that with this being the first proper stage of the race with huge pressure to win that the last few kms will be chaotic. Some of the sprinters will lose contact with their support riders and the winner is likely to be the rider that can improvise and use others as protection before sprinting for the line.
Giro d’Italia Stage 2 – The Contenders
Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) starts today as overwhelming favourite in the bookies and the cycling medias view. He has 9 sprint wins this season and produced a stunning Prologue Time-trial finish yesterday. Were he to pick up some bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint today and/or tomorrow and to win stage 2 and stage 3 he would take the Maglio Rosa. Kittel has said that is not really his aim, he just wants to win stages, but he has positioned himself to capture the biggest prize by winning stages. Kittel is the fastest sprinter in the race and due to this his price is really short – between 1.63-1.91 as of this morning.
There are a host of other sprinters in the mix. Andre Griepel (Lotto Soudal) is coming into the Giro with a sprint win in the Tour of Turkey last week. He probably doesn’t have the pure speed to beat Kittel however if it is a ‘clean’ sprint finish.
The ‘home’ (Italian) challenge is expected to come from a trio of riders – Elia Viviani (Sky), Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo).
Of the three – Modolo won twice last week in the Tour or Turkey (beating Griepel) in the process, yet he is 6th favourite for todays stage. Nizzolo is the defending champion in the sprint classification having won the Red Jersey in 2015. He also has good form with a couple of sprint stage wins in the Tour of Croatia last week. Nizzolo is currently available at around 13/1-16/1 at most bookmakers and I think this is great value. I’m not sure Viviani has the form to win today.
Caleb Ewen (Orica-GreenEdge) broke through in a big way in 2015 winning a Giro stage. I think he will win a stage again this year but I have a feeling that todays finish will be contested by riders with more experience with bunch sprints.
I have a sneaky feeling that Arnaud Demarre (FDJ) could spoil the party for the riders mentioned above. He won the sprint at the end of Milan-San Remo after being dropped due to a crash. There is some contention about how he re-joined the front group in that race, but he is quick and very good at using other teams riders to help his cause in a sprint. He is a decent EW shout at around 20/1.
Giro d’Italia Stage 2 – Tips
I think there is a strong chance that Kittel wins Stage 2 but there is little value in his price. My choice is for a ‘home’ rider to revail in Nijmegen.
Back Giacomo Nizzolo to win at 17.0 for a 1.0/10 stake EW (1/4 odds top 3) with Ladbrokes.
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