By Shane Stokes
Having returned to racing Saturday in the GP Miguel Indurain, Eddie Dunbar’s five and a half weeks away from competition have not reduced his targets for this year’s Giro d’Italia.
Seventh overall last year was a superb showing in what was only his second Grand Tour ever. A year older, a year more experienced and with that Grand Tour in his legs, he is hungry to build on that showing and go even better this time around.
“I go in with the same approach as last year, an open mind,” Dunbar told stickybottle. “Obviously it would be nice to improve on the year previous. That is what we are working towards.
“To go in and get through that first week unscathed. And not lose any time, that’s going to be important. The first two stages are pretty tricky. I think they are more or less going to be GC days, in my opinion.”
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This year’s Giro begins in Venaria Reale on May 4th with a mountainous opening stage to Torino. It includes second, third and fourth category climbs. The following stage concludes with the first category climb to Santuario di Oropa, and will immediately show who of the GC contenders are in form.
“You are going to have to go into it pretty strong, I think,” he says. “Not like last year where you could ride yourself into it a little. It’s going to be a case that you need to be on it from the start.”
"That's seven crashes in the past year"
Seventh overall last year despite illness in the final two days - something which saw him slip back from fourth overall - Dunbar’s performance underlined the general belief that he didn’t get adequate opportunities with Team Sky-Ineos Grenadiers. He was with that setup for slightly over four seasons and, despite his talent, was regularly tasked with riding for others.
Performing so strongly in the Giro rewarded Team Jayco AlUla’s faith in the Corkman, showing that signing him as a leader on a three-year deal was a wise move.
This is even more so the case considering what he had faced in the months prior to that event. He crashed on his very first day of racing in 2023, hitting the deck in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and fracturing the hamate bone in his left hand.
He hoped for a quick recovery from the injury but things were complicated by the non-healing of that bone and a subsequent decision that he needed surgery. Forced to train for weeks on a home trainer, he was unable to race for a total of two months.
He got in just 11 days of competition prior to the Giro, with 72nd in the Itzulia Basque Country and ninth in the Tour de Romandie his sole performances before the Grand Tour.
Strong in Italy, the intention was that he would build on that showing by shining in the Vuelta a España. He started that race believing he was in better form than before the Italian event, but he slid out twice in the washed-out team time trial in Barcelona.
He then fell again in the neutral section of stage five and withdrew from the event as a result.
Dunbar began this season hoping for much better luck but had further setbacks. He crashed on stage three of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and while he was not badly hurt, team doctors felt it was better for him to rest rather than to continue on.
He lined out in the UAE Tour 17 days later but fell again, being taken out of it in a pileup inside the final 400 metres of the stage.
Speaking in a team video after that fall, he explained how it happened. “Coming into the finish I was in a good position, or I thought I was,” he said. “Basically, the crash happened and I was coming to a stop, happy to avoid it.
"Then I got hit from behind by another rider going at about 50kph or something like that. That took me off the bike and straight over the handlebars, and I took all the weight on my right-hand side.”
The following morning he was at the start of the time trial in Al Hudayriyat Island, spending time with the team prior to flying home early.
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“That’s seven crashes in the past year,” he confirmed then to stickybottle. “It was actually six in like six or seven months. So that’s pretty tolling, and more so mentally.
"If it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck,” he added, smiling.
When it was suggested to him that it must be difficult waiting for his fortunes to change, he agreed.
“I’ve been waiting a few years now for it,” he said. “Obviously last year it kind of started to change at the Giro. But it’s trying to get a good run of things to get to 100%. I still don’t know what that feels like.”
His point is a relevant one. Riders gain strength the more racing they do, particularly Grand Tours. Having just two of those races in his legs at this point in his career is rare for a 27 year old rider, and does imply that there is considerable untapped potential there.
Dunbar agreed with that suggestion, but has a worry. “If these [setbacks] keep happening, does that potential get lower?” he pondered. “All this shit starts running through your head.
“Setbacks are part of sport, but when they accumulate like this, it’s difficult to take sometimes.
“But we’ll just assess the next few days. And I know how to handle this stuff now. So I’ll just get on with it, I guess.”
Some unexpected good news
Dunbar flew back to Nice the following day. He was due to see the same hand specialist who operated on him last year, and was then set to decide what would happen next based on those results.
Having initially been told in UAE he had fractured the capate bone in his right hand, that subsequent checkup saw him get some positive news. The amended diagnosis reduced his recovery time compared to last season and now sees him back in competition less than six weeks after his crash.
“It turns out the bone was quite badly bruised rather than fractured, so I just had to be careful and stay indoors for a few weeks,” he told stickybottle
“When the bone is bruised it is probably prone to more injuries or fractures if you crash on it again. So I’ve just been careful.”
Dunbar did a lot of work on the home trainer, but this time around swapped his base in Monaco for altitude training in Isola in France, close to the Italian border.
“I did similar to last year, two hours in the morning on the turbo and an hour in the evening,” he explained. “It was just nice being able train at altitude, so I came off that really well. So that is a positive.”
Back on the road for about three weeks now, he feels he has got in a lot of good training. And while it will take time to build racing sharpness, he was in a good frame of mind getting back into the peloton today before Tour of the Basque, starting Monday.
Like last year, Dunbar’s participation in the Itzulia Basque Country race will be followed by the Tour de Romandie. And, all going well in those events, he should be in strong shape when the Giro begins on May 4th.
Recognised as a very gifted athlete, Dunbar is yet to really show his potential. As he suggests, a sustained run of racing without issues will be needed to fully tap into his talent; he and the team hope that this year things will finally go his way.
In the meantime he is taking a glass-half-full approach to what has happened, reflecting on his Volta Valenciana crash last year and pointing out that was a bigger setback than this year’s fall.
“I’ll have a very similar run in to the Giro, very similar prep. Obviously not having that surgery puts us a week or two ahead of last year, which is positive,” he said. “Hopefully things go smoothly now when I get back racing.”
Given all he has been through, given what he could achieve with a bit more luck, many would agree with that wish.
