Addio Michele - 100th Giro d'Italia, 2017

[Antepli Ejderha]

Addio Michele - 100th Giro d'Italia, 2017

Nibali puts in a decent ride to be a minute down on Dumoulin.

Quintana finishes and Dumoulin wins the Giro. Fully deserved and a great victory, the first for the Netherlands in a grand tour for 37 years.

Jos van Emden wins the stage break and is surprisingly emotional about it.

[ursus arctos]

Addio Michele - 100th Giro d'Italia, 2017

Fully deserved by Dumoulin, who will win more Grand Tours.

Quintana and Nibali with impressive final time trials, Pinot not so much.

[Kevin S]

Addio Michele - 100th Giro d'Italia, 2017

Pinot was a real let down on the final ITT, for sure. Apparently his competitive performance here though saw much stronger ratings for the Giro in France than is usual, so that's a good thing. He suffered from the ratio of climbs to ITT kilometres, taking seconds on stages that suited him when Dumoulin can take huge chunks on the time trials. But that's how the cookie sometimes crumbles. Good to see him being very aggressive though. The Dutch have broken their 37 year drought (incredible for such a strong cycling country) and the French one from Jalabert's Vuelta now stands at nearly 22 years (though I do think the Tour looks potentially Bardet-friendly this year).

Huge credit to Dumoulin's team as well as him personally, after suffering from Kelderman's crash and operating on a much smaller budget than Movistar and (I presume) Bahrain-Merida. Laurens ten Dam was a great domestique for him; a seasoned GT rider who four or five years ago was a team leader himself.

Quintana secures his seventh career GT podium, maintaining his place as one of the elite even if he never exploded on a climb the way we have come to expect. Perhaps trying to keep his powder a little dry for July?

Nibali is still Nibali, and we wouldn't want it any other way. As the big name of that team, we should see him in another grand tour this year.

Heartened to see Pozzo return to the business end of a GC after a few leaner years. He'll likely never win one because of his time trialling - unless someone actually sets him up properly on a bike - but with six top tens to his name now there's hope he can finish on a podium at some point.

Zakarin did better than I expected. Mollema about as well as I expected. It did prove to be a close race in terms of time but Yates (despite his crash), Jungels and Formolo all did rather well for young riders. Polanc and Hirt also had solid times but they were break-boosted. Yates is another in need of a time trial tune up.

The best sprinter won the points jersey and the best climber won the KoM, so that was all good. The maglia nera is no longer awarded but since the last rider who completes the race but since that honour fell to a rider called Fonzi, he took to opportunity to have a little fun:

https://twitter.com/WilierSelleIta/status/868795684656492544?ref_src="twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=ht tp%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2F223326-video-happy-days-back-marker-giuseppe-fonzi-rocks-giro-time-trial-black-leather

[Kevin S]

Addio Michele - 100th Giro d'Italia, 2017

Kevin S wrote: The Dutch have broken their 37 year drought (incredible for such a strong cycling country)

Fair to say it's gone down well at home: