Lampre came into the Giro with very limited expectations.They didn't have an overall threat and in Modolo they have a capable but not spectacular sprinter. Yet, they finished the Giro with three stage wins (Polanc, Ulissi and Modolo) and a third place in the points classification. They will worry about the lack of an overall contender, the weight of GC success rests firmly on Rui Costa and Rafael Valls' shoulders, both of whom will be riding the Tour in July.
A+ Astana
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| Landa was just one of the Astana juggernaut which put Aru in 2nd |
A Movistar
Another team who came to the Giro with minimal expectations but will leave with a strong haul of results. They entered the Giro with no real overall aspirations but they have left with a future Grand Tour podium finishers in Amador. They also took a stage win with Intxausti and the mountains competition with Giovanni Visconti. A solid performance from the Spanish team.
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| Amador was a very surprising 4th overall for the Spanish team. |
Expectations were low for the American team. They had no real overall contender and stage successes seemed to be limited to breakaway success. However they've ended the Giro with a top 10 for Damiano Caruso and two opportunistic stage wins for Gilbert. There will be a little bit of disappointment that Rick Zabel seems to be a long way off winning a sprint although he is still young. The biggest concern will be for Atapuma who didn't ever look likely to finish high up overall or win a stage, he's only 27 so yet to reach his peak but he would've liked to have shown more in this race.
B Orica GreenEdge
Orica continued their Grand Tour habit of dominating the first week before falling away for the last two. They bagged a win in the team time trial and another with Michael Matthews plus four stages in pink as a team. However the last two weeks were woeful, Matthews did nothing in the sprints until he retired before the time trial and their highest overall finisher was Esteban Chaves who came 56th, over 3 hours down.
B- Cannondale Garmin
It's been an awful season so far for the Italian/American team but this Giro has been one of the few bright points. It was a poor first ten days for Hesjedal who seemingly lost time on every single day but the Giro was saved by Davide Formolo's excellent victory into La Spezia and further gloss was added by Hesjedal's excellent riding in the last week. His charge up the the overall standings was a point of interest in a final week which was largely devoid of interest after Contador galloped away on the Mortirolo.
B- Katusha
It was looking rosier before the stage to Sestriere where Trofimov fell away to 10th from 6th position. That he had been riding so high was a surprise but a pleasant one for the Russians who sent a pretty ordinary team to Italy. The extraordinary season of Ilnur Zakarin continued with a stage win into Imola, all in all though it was a Giro that won't live long in the memory for the Katusha team.
B- Bardiani CSF Pro Team
They did what Bardiani do, Pirazzi launched some ridiculous long range attacks and they picked up a stage win from a breakaway. Somewhat unbelievably, Nicola Boem was in the points jersey for three days after his stage win despite his previous stage highest being 110th! What will be disappointing for the Italian team is that despite his number of attacks, Pirazzi never really looked like winning a stage, he did come 22nd overall though, the highest of any wildcard team.
C+ Lotto Soudal
This was meant to be the Grand Tour where Jurgen Van Den Broeck re-found his earlier stage racing success. It was looking that way after the first week but he limply fell away to finish 12th, 25 minutes down. The best finisher for Lotto was Maxime Monfort who came one place ahead of Van Den Broeck who was over 7 minutes ahead of his Belgian teammate. The one thing that did save the Belgians was Greipel's sprint win on the 6th stage. Overall though, it was a disappointing race for Lotto-Soudal.
C LottoNL-Jumbo
This has been a terrible year for the Dutch team. They have taken just one win the entire year, Moreno Hofland in stage 2 of the Tour de Yorkshire. After this Giro they have still only taken one win but Steven Kruijswijk did at least given them something to cheer about with his marauding ride to 7th overall. What was most impressive about this ride was that he did it almost all by himself with no help from his team. LottoNL have some serious issues to address for the rest of their season if they don't then this will be really embarrassing.
C Tinkoff-Saxo
You might think that it's harsh to rank the team that won the Giro this low down, but, as a team they have really been terrible. Contador has been left without support for almost all the mountain stages this year. To illustrate how bad the team as a whole were, the second best Tinkoff rider was Roman Kreuziger who came 29th, just under two hours down. Five Astana guys finished ahead of Kreuziger! Contador hasn't had the hardest Giro so his Giro-Tour double is still very much on.
C Trek Factory Racing
I would forgive you for not actually realising that Trek raced and if I could I would put them lower down. However, they did win the points jersey with Nizzolo - who bagged 6 top 10 finishes with no wins. Apart from that it wasn't a good Giro for the Trek boys, their top finisher was Fabio Felline who came 32nd, just under 2 hours down. They also won the lanterne rouge....
C- Team Sky
The positives first, they won two stages (Viviani and Kiryenka) and Konig ghosted to 6th. Which sounds like a very positive race, were it not for the expectations they had with Porte. The race started incredibly well for the Australian who looked to be in a very exciting podium race with Contador and Aru. This all changed when he was, in my opinion, wrongly penalised for taking a wheel from Simon Clarke. The 2:45 he lost there probably put him out of contention for overall victory but then his head went and he basically gave up. If he had kept riding then he would've been favourite to complete the podium, even with the time loss, and he would've made a much better case to be considered Team Sky's leader in Grand Tours. He abandoned and was consigned to the "unfulfilled talent" box.
C- FDJ
It was all very low key for the French. Alexandre Geniez took a page from the Zubeldia book of cycling and somehow got a top 10 finish despite never being seen on the TV. Kenny Elissonde showed moments where he looked like he might fulfil his promise as an excellent climber but in general he was disappointing. They finished with all 9 riders, so I guess that's a positive.
D+ AG2R La Mondiale
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| Betancur seemed to be finding some of his form back. |
D+ Etixx Quick Step
They were saved from a much worse score by Iljo Keisse's opportunistic victory on the final day. That aside though it was an extremely difficult Giro for the Belgian squad. Rigoberto Uran's form was a worry in the first week but it looked as if he might come into form right at the point when Aru, Contador and Porte burnt themselves out and then he could stride into a podium place. Unfortunately for him, he just kept getting worse and worse until the final days when he found a bit of form to get into 14th position overall. Will Etixx now decide to send him to the Tour?
D Androni-Giocattoli
Well, they turned up. Franco Pellizotti was once again the best performer by finishing 24th an hour and a half behind Contador. He also got two top 10's on stages which is a decent return for the 37 year old. The other eight riders came along so Franco didn't get bored on the team bus.
D- Nippo Vini Fantini
After the first two weeks it looked like Damiano Cunego might be re-discovering some of the form that he had back in 2004. Then he crashed out on the 18th stage and their highest ranked GC rider was 50th placed Alessandro Bisolti who lost just under 3 hours.
D- CCC Sprandi Polokowice
9 orange clad eastern European cyclists rode around Italy for 3 weeks. The single interesting point in the whole Giro for the CCC team was when Slovenian hard man sprinter Grega Bole came 19th on the Mortirolo stage to Aprica.
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| Proof that IAM, Southeast and Giant-Alpecin actually rode the Giro. |
If you're going to wear a white and grey kit then you really have to make sure that the riding is exciting. It wasn't the case for Southeast. Petacchi rode around but pulled out on the penultimate stage thus meaning he didn't finish his last ever Giro.
E+ Team Giant Alpecin
Giant Alpecin showed solidarity with Marcel Kittel by riding like he has been all season. Luka Mezgec was the one high point, he got 6 top 10 finishes with a high of 3rd. Their highest finisher was Tobias Ludvigsson, 83rd, 4 hours back.
E+ IAM Cycling
Apparently they showed up although it's understandable that you might have missed this. Haussler came 6th on one stage after hauling himself around for 2 weeks looking nothing like the Tour de France stage winner of old. Sylvain Chavanel finished 2 and a half hours behind Contador and managed 2 top 5s as a beaten breakaway member.
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