The Tirreno-Adriatico is a week-long stage race covering some 1,060 kms over seven stages, beginning with a team time-trial and concluding with an individual time-trial (ITT). Last year’s winner of the Two Seas Race is the 2011 Le Tour de France winner Cadel Evans, and whilst it is made more difficult to assess his chances this year since he has decided to delay the start of his racing season, some close observations can be made which suggest he may just win again this year and go back-to-back.
Perhaps unsurpisingly, Italians have won this race the most number of times, and that is to be expected with the prestige which comes with winning on home soil in a country with a proud cycling heritage. Indeed, apart from Cadel Evans’ (Australian) victory last year and Kloden’s (German) win in 2007, Italians have won this race as many times as all the other winning foreign riders combined throughout the race’s history. So whilst this may appear as a somewhat startling statistic on first impression – a foreign rider with good knowledge and solid experience of/in the race, and one willing to suffer as equally as a rider suffering with the benefit of pride in front of home-crowd cheers, must have an equal chance of winning this race with the fancied Italian riders making the start line in the ancient city of San Vincenzo. Of course it cannot be the case that the Italian air benefits an Italian rider’s lungs more favourably than the lungs of a foreign rider, and whilst an Italian rider may win this year I would expect to see that the trend over the coming years tend toward foreign riders winning, and in so doing, balancing the stark descrepancy which exists in the observed statistics.
Nevertheless, half of the riders in the top 10 last year were Italian, and Vincenzo Nibali, who finished 5th, 30 seconds down on Evans, presents as an excellent each-way prospect this year. Nibali finished 2nd on GC, only one second behind winner Peter Velits, after winning the penultimate 5th stage of the Tour of Oman in mid-February, before continuing his good early season form with a solid 15th place finish in the Strade Bianche, a one-day classic race on Italy’s white, dusty, Tuscan roads. However, the important observation to be made about Nibali is his motivation, he is enjoying his riding and wants to perform well for his team, something which has sometimes been missing in his career, and therefore it is highly likely in my opinion, that he’ll finish on the podium, but the winner of the race is likely to be Evans again, and my reasons are composed of two parts.
Part one is the evidence the perceptive reader may have witnessed last season in his attention to detail in planning his race schedule, and part two is the absence of any strong and impressive challengers making up the field, or riders of his well-rounded calibre, remembering that the parcours is exactly such a test for such a rider. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this race is made for Evans in his present shape as Le Tour de France winner, and therefore it’s not a surprise to witness him start his – official – 2012 season in this race. He essentially swung his leg over the saddle in the G.P. Citta di Lugano in Switzerland in windy and dangerous conditions given the amount of crashes in the last few kms; and he followed that up similarly in the Trofeo Palma de Mallorca.
The only downside in gaining an even higer level of confidence in his chances of winning, is the absence of evidence of a result in an actively hostile fashion in a race worth winning thus far, and it is why I would have suggested a start in the Strade Bianche with some genuine aggression, for him. Nevertheless, I go back to his professionalism in planning his season, and all the work he has put in training so far this year, has been for this race. His season starts here because he is a winner here, and this year as reigning Le Tour de France Gold Jersey-wearer he has not only that to defend, but defend he must, all his victories prior, since they are the results which took him to the pinnacle in the sport of professional world cycling in 2011. Cadel Evans should win this race with little difficulty on paper, in my opinion, and confirm to us so much in the process.
The last rider to win back-to-back is Tony Rominger in 1989-1990, who like Evans was an all-round bike rider in so far as him being good at the time-trial discipline and climbing. Unlike Evans he never won the Tour, but did finish 2nd. Evans, like nearly all riders with the weight of expectation of defending big races on his shoulders, said of his chances at the Two Seas Race, recently, “My first goal is to see how my fitness is. I’ve worked reasonably well towards it. To repeat last year’s result here would be an ultimate gauge of my fitness. But we’ll first test my fitness and then see the result.”
The queen stage looks to be the 5th stage, a tough mountain stage with a summit finish to the ski resort of Prati di Tivo, where we’ll likely see the winner come to prominence, however the beauty about Evans is that, like he proved in the Tour last year, he has the ITT ace card in his back pocket to use if necessary, and thus he is the one rider likely to dominate without having to attack like the challenger needing to prove his candidacy for wrestling control of the race. This race will indeed be a good test of his fitness and where his form is at the moment, and that it sets up for him as a mini grand tour is no coincidence.
If the scrupulous reader were to observe the discrepancy between Cadel Evans’ dividend to win the Tour later this year – currently – at 2/1, and his best price to win this race at 9/1 – I would expect he/she would agree with me that Evans is excellent value and well worth a confident wager on a rider who will give an honest performance and cannot be more suited by the parcours. Nibali, is the favourite at 5/2, and I would actually argue whether it’s deserving and would therefore suggest a podium finish for him only, and thus a bet on an each-way basis.
