Giro dItalia 2022

Budapest hosts the Grande Partenza as the 2022 Giro d'Italia gets underway. Richard Carapaz, Simon Yates and Joao Almeida are the favourites for pink, with Mark ...

It's a largely flat 195km schlep today which concludes with an intriguing 5km climb to the line at Visegrad. The final ascent is not particularly steep but it will probably be enough to do away with the majority of the sprinters... Girmay may have the strength to keep up with the pace on the final climb - as does Caleb Ewan - but you get the impression that it won't be a day for the sprinters. The peloton is rolling through the outskirts of Budapest as it makes its way to the official start of today's opening stage. 186km to go: The peloton has shown zero collective interest in pegging back Tagliani and Bais, who are almost guaranteed the intermediate sprint and fuga prize points today for their Drone Hopper team. After a delay of two years, the grande partenza has finally come to Hungary following the fall-out from the pandemic. 171km to go: The gap continues to grow as the peloton trundles along at a leisurely pace past the droves of Hungarian fans lining the roads. 143km to go: The Belgian team have also sent a rider onto the front alongside Alpecin-Fenix and DSM. They're working for their man Biniam Girmay, who will be eyeing a maiden Grand Tour scalp on his Giro debut. The gap was pushing 11 minutes but is now down to 9'40" after a slight increase in tempo. They won't want to catch the escapees too soon, so expect a bit of a stalemate for the next hour or so. As for Landa, does he have the temperament and can he avoid misfortune? 85km to go: With two riders in the break, the Italian wildcard team Drone Hopper are getting the names of their myriad sponsors on the TV box today. Indeed, the very fact that Mark Cavendish swapped bikes from his lighter sprinting model to his climbing bike a bit earlier suggests that, although he played it down at the start, the 36-year-old thinks there's still a chance for him to take the win.