It feels good to be writing a race review for once this season, and I’ll start the review with a big shoutout to the organisers of the U23 Giro d’Italia, they ran a flawless race and everything seemed to be perfect, apart from some bad surface mixing with rain to cause some crashes on stage two that ended the GC chances of a few riders, plus a crash of a motorcycle that ended the race for two GC favourites, Maxim Van Gils and Viktor Verschaeve. Congrats guys, well done!
Five of the eight stages were split between Luca Colnaghi and Tom Pidcock, with Alejandro Ropero, Jordi Meeus and Jonathan Milan the other three stage winners. The opening few days saw small groups contest stages 1-3, before Pidcock soloed to stage four and sprints were the outcome of days five and six. Pidcock was at it again for the big summit finish, and only Henri Vandenabeele could follow him to the line on Mortirolo day, but the Brit was a comfortable victor.
In the GC, Pidcock easily won the overall, with Vandenabeele’s Mortirolo ride earning him 2nd overall, before Italy rounded out the top five with Kevin Colleoni, Giovanni Aleotti and Filippo Conca.
As for the jerseys, Pidcock’s win gave him Pink, and he also earned the green jersey for KOM, whilst Colnaghi took home Red for the points classification. Pidcock’s high placing on the other classification won him the multicolour jersey. The white jersey for best young rider (first year U23 only) went to Edoardo Zambanini, and the blue jersey for intermediate sprints went to General Store’s Cristian Rocchetta, whilst Kometa-Xstra were the best team.
Now, we can discuss five things I believe we learned, as well as seeing who some of the winners and losers from this huge race in the U23 calendar were.
Five Things We Learned
Pidcock Truly Terrifies
The legend grows. Not only did Pidcock, who has barely raced on the road this season, win the race, he won all three of the serious climbing stages showcasing that ‘win everything’ CX attitude. There’s not much else we can say about Tom Pidcock, other than what I’ve said before. He excites every time he gets on his bike and I cannot wait to see what he does on the pro stage, whenever he decides to make the jump there.
Vandenabeele the Real Deal?
I’ll discuss a little more about the second-year Belgian later in this review, but he was very impressive here. Perhaps racing the opening days without the burden of leadership, Vandenabeele was the most consistent rider not named Pidcock. A strong climber, he’s been good in Valle d’Aosta, so this race didn’t terrify him in terms of parcours, it was just the length that he had to deal with, which he duly did. Second overall was well earned, and Belgium has yet another GC rider to fawn over.
Aleotti and Colleoni Confirm
Despite not being able to keep pace with Pidcock and Vandenabeele on the Mortirolo, 3rd and 4th overall for Kevin Colleoni and Giovanni Aleotti respectively was a good result, and the duo answered some big questions about themselves. No one has questioned future Androni rider Colleoni’s climbing legs, with 3rd and 5th on the race’s two hardest stages last year, but he was prone to bad days and had no big GC results in the U23 races he has done so far. Two seconds and a fourth on the big GC days show exactly what he’s about. You get the feeling Androni made a huge steal when they signed him last offseason for 2021 and 2022, he seems WorldTour class. Aleotti does seem WorldTour bound, with Bra-hansgrohe the reported suitor. He was 2nd in l’Avenir last year, but some questioned if it was a fluke. This shows he’s not just a hilly classics rider, but also a GC rider too. The Italians did well, and Colleoni has earned the nation it’s first podium here since the race came back.
Milan Arrives at the Big Time
We’ve seen the terrific form of Jordi Meeus since racing came back, and he added a stage win and two second places here to add to his two wins from the Czech Tour, and Jake Stewart is a WorldTour rider as of January 1st. But for Jonathan Milan, a second year U23, he has announced himself as a top sprinter and TT rider this year. The Italian U23 ITT champ won stage six and took 3rd on stage two, which, off the back of his 5th in the U23 European ITT, has earmarked the track rider as a future star of the sport. Italy continues its tradition of producing as many sprinters and rouleurs as they do climbers right now.
Spain end their drought
Spain had ended the previous three editions of the race since it returned winless, but Kometa-Xstra’s Alejandro Ropero duly won the opening stage, ending the nation’s drought and, with hindsight, saving his team’s race. This was for sure Sapain’s best chance, with names like Exteberria and Sergio Garcia, nd at the 30th stage of asking, one of cycling’s great nations got their big U23 win. Ropero would end the race 7th overall, just under 30 seconds ahead of Jokin Murguialday in 8th, of Caja Rural Amateur. Carlos Garcia, Jokin’s teammate, and Sergio Garcia ended the race in the top fiftenn and twenty respectively too, making for a good race for the nation.
Winners and Losers
Henri Vandenabeele
After heading into the race as Lotto-Soudal U23’s third option behind the aforementioned Van Gils and Verschaeve, Vandenabeele raced aggressively and made the front groups on stage one and three to take time, before racing well on Montespluga to stay in GC contention after having no real climbing support left (but Arne Marit and Harry Sweeny helped a lot on the flatter terrain). 2nd on the final day saw him flip 4th place into 2nd. He’d been good in the mountains before in his first 18 months at this level, but everyone knows about him now…
Zalf (& Luca Colnaghi)
Despite Colpack dominating the Italian scene and taking the best current Italian U23s and final-year juniors, this continues to be Zalf’s race. The team has also seen it’s best U23s poached by other squads, with Alberto Dainese and Marco Frigo setting off fro SEG, as well as Battistella joining NTT Conti. But even with all the perceived issues, that’s now 4 stage wins from 4 editions, although they won two stages in 2018 and this year. Luca Colnaghi had spent seasons at both Sangemini and Colpack, and Zalf took a flyer on him this year, and he’s repaid them tenfold with two very different and attacking stage wins, and should probably be awarded at least a ProConti deal. Edoardo Zambanini is proof that Colpack don’t have a lock on the top first year U23s from Italy, as he won the best young rider jersey on route to tenth overall. Zalf keep on churning out top riders
Antonio Tiberi
With the virus limiting racing, I was keen to see how Tiberi and Andrea Piccolo would fare in this race as first years. Piccolo has been heavily linked with Astana, whilst we’ve known for a year now that Tiberi is Trek-Segafredo bound and was basically riding for Colpack on a loan deal. Piccolo didn’t finish the race, but Tiberi was aggressive throughout and put in some strong rides over the race. I think he’s WorldTour ready now, and he brings some good climbing legs to go with that TT of his.
Thomas Gloag (& Ben Healy)
Ben Healy and Thomas Gloag were phenomenal for Pidcock. Healy we knew was a class act, but Gloag, yet another first year, was superb, especially on the climbs. 4th atop Montespluga and 7th on the Mortirolo day, he and Healy made their small three man team count in the mountains after Trinity lost some bodies early. Pidcock was very strong, but having his two lieutenants with him was a big help. Gloag’s future looks very bright. Kudos to he and Healy for their superb rides.
Tobias Bayer
Despite abandoning with a day to go, Tobias Bayer did his chances of signing a pro contract no harm at all. He was terrific every stage he raced, finishing no lower than 11th. He was an ever-present near the front of the race, and I think he’s shown he can be a top professional. You’d imagine Bora-hansgrohe would be keen since they’ve signed a lot of Austrians, but we shall need to wait and see, with Aleotti arriving and Wandahl and Walls already added, space may not be there for the third year U23.
The “Little Guys”
I had about 15 contenders in my mind for this race, all at varying levels of likelihood to win the race. Yet The top twenty always springs surprises at these sorts of races, but the back half of the top then this year was hugely different to how I expected it to look. In addition to Ropero in 7th and young Murguialday in 8th, as well as allowing for the first year surprise of Zambanini in 10th, we had Swiss Racing Academy’s Yannia Voissard in 6th and VC Mendrisio’s Asbjorn Hellemose in 9th, two riders I must confess I wasn’t following at all before this race. Henok Mulubrhan was amazing for Africa and NTT Conti in 11th, narrowly missing the top ten, and my fellow Scot Calum Johnston was a terrific 12th. Throw in two more Italians I wasn’t tracking in 15th and 16th (Gerardo Stressa and Gianluca Mignolli), then you have a GC battle that was really rather surprising, with success and top results for some local teams and some of the riders many like me were not championing ahead of this race.
Alessandro Fancellu
Without question, the biggest loser for me is Fancellu. Whilst Tiberi, his future Trek-Segafredo teammate, looked good at the U23 level, Fancellu performed horrendously on the final weekend. I’m not sure if he crashed or got sick or had mechanicals, but the results sheet doesn’t look too good. He was able to survive the opening three stages and was still 14th overall after the first summit finish. But 100th at Montespluga dropped him back 20 minutes, and he was nowhere to be seen on the Mortirolo. Like I say, I’m not too sure what happened, but for a guy who has targetted this race since the start of the year, he will be disappointed. If you pushed me for an answer, I don’t think he’s WorldTour ready yet.
Lotto-Soudal
Not exactly a loser, but let me paint a picture of the problems the WorldTour team’s management face: they already added Florian Vermeersch from the devo team midseason and have Verschaeve and Sebastian Grignard contracted for 2021 onwards. That presumably doesn’t leave too many spots left over the next year for U23s for 2021 and then 2022. Yet they have Vandenabeele, Van Gils, Marit, Sweeny and Ward Vanhoof all without a pro contract right now, and Jarne Van De Paar’s been developing nicely too. Doing the maths, it will be hard to keep all of these guys within the set-up and not see them go pro elsewhere. A good problem to have, but a problem it remains.
Sean Quinn
After heading into the race with legitimate winning ambitions, or at least a podium, Hagens Berman Axeon’s Sean Quinn had a bad final weekend of the race and slipped from GC contention all together. He lost Kevin Vermaerke early on in the race to a bad crash, and Jens Reynders was gone ahead of the final stages too. Ending the race 17th overall was certainly not what the young American would have been aiming for.
The Colombians
Again, I won’t be too harsh on the Colombians, as a couple of one-day races against WorldTour riders is really not enough to be ready to try and win this race. Jesus David Pena was terrific last season here en route to 7th overall, this year he really struggled on the climbs and finished well down. Didier Merchan was 7th on Montespluga but that was all he offered, whilst Diego Camargo, who my fellow U23 reporter Youri Ijnsen had highly rated coming into this race, was pretty much non-existent. Brayan Esteban Malaver was the nation’s top finisher in 21st overall. Here’s my one reason I struggle to rank Colombians highly in GC races at this level: last year’s Giro saw early summit finishes, clearly establishing a GC hierarchy, unlike the 2020 edition. They simply cannot be relied upon to survive bad weather, tricky days, time trials or the elements and get to the mountains within touching distance of the race lead. We saw it with Osorio two years ago, and we’ve seen it again here. But I feel for them, travelling here and the lack of races really did leave them off the pace, which was a great shame when you think of how strong they were in 2019.
U23 Cycling Zone 