Sean Kelly says while the line-up of main contenders, and their mixed preparations, made it hard to pick a Giro d’Italia winner this year, he believed Egan Bernal and Remco Evenepoel could surprise.
The former World No 1 dismissed suggestions that Evenepoel was riding the race to get back into action ahead of his so-called main goal of the season, the Olympic Games. Kelly simply did not believe suggestions coming from Deceuninck-QuickStep that Evenepoel may ride in support of João Almeida.
“I think they’ll see how Evenepoel is going to do in the first week. But I think he wants to be challenging for a place on the podium. He’s not there to ride around to mainly get back for the Olympics," he told stickybottle.
“And when you see Deceuninck-QuickStep haven’t really sent any sprinter, they are banking on the GC and it’s not only for Almeida, it’s for Evenepoel as well.”
Advertisement
However, while Kelly felt Evenepoel and Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) had a strong chance of winning - injuries allowing - Simon Yates (BikeExchange) was his outright favourite to win the race overall this year.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty for a lot of the guys,” Kelly said. He noted Evenepoel was coming back from injury having not raced since August, Egan Bernal had question marks over his bad back and Vincenzo Nibali (Trek Segafredo) had suffered a broken bone in recent weeks.
“It’s a very exciting race, from that sense. It’s going
to be very interesting for some of the guys because with someone like Bernal…
if he’s not right, you won’t know that maybe for 10 days or even two weeks of
racing – before he really tests his back.
“With Evenepoel, he’s been out for such a long time. People do a lot of talking, saying he can be away for a long time and come back and race. But, will he? Eight months is a long time. And in terms of the accident he had (at Il Lombardia last August); how well will he get on in the bunch, on the descents for example?”
Kelly added while Simon Yates hadn’t performed brilliantly all through the early part of the season, he was very impressed with his form at the recent Tour of the Alps, where he took the queen stage and overall victory.
Related News
“But you have other guys who will be thinking they can podium; Mikel Landa, Hugh Carthy, Dan Martin and so on. Dan can definitely be thinking of the podium, especially after the Vuelta last year (where he won a stage and was 4th overall). If the conditions are right for Dan and if we don’t get really wet weather, which Dan doesn’t like, he can do well.
“But it will depend on how other riders go. If Bernal and
Evenepoel are at their best, I would really be expecting a lot from Bernal. I
don’t think he’d be going to the Giro if he wasn’t in quite good shape because
I don’t think the team would send him.
“We know Evenepoel last year was amazing, with the races he was winning. He is a huge talent. Is he that super talented that he could come back and challenge and maybe even win the Giro? So all of that will have a bearing on what the others can do, including Dan Martin," he added of the Irish Israel Start-Up Nation rider.
Kelly continued: “Landa (Bahrain Victorious) has been talking up his own chances, saying it ‘could be my first big tour win’. That’s big talk. But he is a rider that is solid over the three weeks and in the third week he can be very strong."
“And this Giro is going to be a real killer. The second
week is going to be really hard and the third week is the killer.”
While Jai Hindley (Team DSM) was 2nd at the Giro last
year and Hugh Carthy (EF Education Nippo) was 3rd at the Vuelta, Kelly said
they had to “step up” again. He felt Hindley’s 2nd place last year was “a major
surprise” while Carthy would “want to prove last year wasn’t a flash in the pan”.
However, Kelly said Carthy had been performing at a high
level, and improving, for a long time. And he believed the confidence boost he
would have gotten from the Vuelta last year means he “can do big things” in
this Giro.
While Kelly believed Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers) and
the hotly tipped Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech) could ride well, he had yet to see the
consistency from them that would suggest they would ride at their highest level
for three weeks.
“I think they’ll have off days and they’ll
just lose time; I think that’s their problem. They’re not proven over that long
three week period.”
Topics
