Italy 2021 – Velogames Round Up

I wouldn’t look too hard at how my team performed this Giro. It just goes to show that no matter how much meticulous planning, how much we think we know or might know about this sport, there will always be twists and surprises. Quite a few riders in the final top 10 are where we thought they’d end up or thereabouts. Then there are the notable absentees and those who stepped up in their place. It was great to see a few more young riders perform on the biggest stage, and a few forever domestiques having the race of their lives possibly even more so! Let’s go through everything here to see if we can learn a few lessons before the Tour in less than a months time.

Final Rider Standings

George dialled back the points on offer for each stage in an effort to stem the inflation for general classification riders we saw last year. Although that seems to have backfired a little here with so many stages going to the breakaway, somewhat defying convention, and then the GC contenders fighting it out for the rest. That means the sprinters were a little hard done by this race, but it didn’t help that the two sprinters most likely to pick up multiple stages and have their teams chase on difficult days, left the race early. Here’s the rundown on each category to see how all the riders performed.

All rounders

1. Egan Bernal – 2964
2. João Almeida – 1521
3. Tobias Foss – 925
4. Remco Evenepoel – 743
5. Bauke Mollema – 430

Any doubts myself or anyone else had about Bernal’s fitness were completely obliterated after an almost flawlessly dominant three week display from the 24 year old Colombian. I sincerely hope we’ve seen the last of his back troubles because it was a joy to watch him in full flight. Almeida recovered from a difficult first two weeks and some team politics to blast his way to a solid top 10 with a brilliant third week. It’s just a shame he wasn’t rewarded with a stage win for his efforts, but his time will come. Foss ghosted himself to 9th place superbly after 3rd place in the opening time trial. His best other stage result was 9th on stage 19. Evenepoel was doing pretty nicely before his team withdrew him from the race after stage 17. Decent experience from him at only 21 years of age, and a 7th and two 4th places are just reward for his first grand tour. Mollema being here with only 430 points goes to show that some riders really didn’t have the race they wanted. Buchmann, Sivakov, and Soler all crashed out whilst Nibali was just happy to complete the race and Bilbao proved super domestique, but not for who we thought.

climbers

1. Damiano Caruso – 2060
2. Simon Yates – 1576
3. Aleksandr Vlasov – 1544
4. Daniel Felipe Martinez – 1475
5. Dan Martin – 1191

After an extremely hilly Giro with 6 summit finishes and numerous other difficult finales, it’s no surprise that the climbers here scored so well. Caruso tops this list in spectacular fashion and is the very definition of seizing the day after his team leader, Mikel Landa, crashed out early on. It was a measure of the strength and depth of Bahrain – Victorious that Caruso was able to finish on the podium with superb help from Pello Bilbao. Well done to the 1.6% of players who backed the Italian here. Simon Yates looked to be timing a third week rise to form nicely, but was undone by the bad weather in the Dolomites on stage 16. Vlasov built on his Vuelta experience from 2020, but just lacked a little something on the steepest gradients. Overall, a solid performance from the young Russian. Martinez was an absolute monster in the third week riding in support of Bernal. He has to be one of the best climbers in the pro peloton at the moment and I hope he gets his chance to lead a grand tour in the not too distant future. Dan martin rounds out this top five despite falling out of GC contention on the gravel stage. His stage win and impressive third week helped him back to 10th overall, which I’d say is a decent return for the Irishman. Bardet and Carthy weren’t far off this list, and there weren’t too many climbers we can say underperformed in this race. Hindley and Masnada were two who did suffer, with saddle sores and tendinitis respectively, and had to withdraw. After mentioning him as a possible cheap outsider, and 10.3% of players thought the same, Cepeda finished this Giro with a whopping 0 fantasy points. A shame for the 22 year old, but hopefully he’ll be back next year.

Sprinters

1. Peter Sagan – 1113
2. Davide Cimolai – 1017
3. Fernando Gaviria – 923
4. Elia Viviani – 793
5. Giacomo Nizzolo – 715

This category probably seems a little low scoring because of two reasons. The first is that the two best sprinters here picked up three early stage wins and then called it a day. Tim Merlier looked very impressive early on, but went home on the first rest day; and Caleb Ewan seems to have a plan to win a stage at every grand tour this year, which I wasn’t aware of until after the race started. The second reason could be down to too few teams willing to chase on slightly more difficult days and the remaining sprinters picking their battles a little more carefully. This Giro as a whole didn’t have many sprinter opportunities, in fact, only 5 stages ended in a traditional sprint. It would have been 6 if Taco van der Hoorn had been caught on stage 3. That being said, the top three on this list all had decent races, with Cimolai proving to be very good value for Israel Start-Up Nation and the 0.8% of players who backed him. Sagan and Nizzolo were the only ones in this top 5 to win a stage each and the top 4 appear in the same order as they do in the official points classification. Nizzolo called it a day after the Zoncolan. Ewan and Merlier were the next two on the leader board, with a returning Groenewegen not too far behind.

unclassed

1. Filippo Ganna – 832
2. Gianni Moscon – 764
3. Nikias Arndt – 673
4. Edoardo Affini – 668
5. Dries De Bondt – 630

A lot of good points on offer here and many riders scoring decently thanks to a Giro of the breakaway. I count 10 stages out of the 19 road stages going to opportunistic riders who rolled the dice. It’s become somewhat of a theme in recent years at the Giro for breakaways to be given so many chances, or for the peloton to sometimes mistime the chase. From the top 5 it was Arndt and De Bondt who prospered the most from this. Arndt in particular should have been a good pick thanks to his absence from the sprinters category. He often fancies a crack at a few stages and it’s something I should have picked up on. De Bondt on the other hand just looked to be having the time of his life, attacking whenever the mood suited him. A hugely entertaining performance on his grand tour debut. No surprise to see Ganna top this list with yet another couple of Giro time trial wins and was backed by 45% of Velogames players. Moscon is second here thanks to some consistent stage finishes and a lot of assist points. Affini had two great showings in the time trials and also almost broke Nizzolo’s heart with his late attack on stage 13 that nearly caught the sprinters napping. The best 4 pointer here was Lorenzo Fortunato, the 25 year old Italian on EOLO-Kometa. I’m sure he’ll be remembering his epic stage win on Monte Zoncolan for years to come.

Dream Team

There are certainly a few surprises here in this team, once again proving that no matter how much we peruse rider form and make predictions, there will always be unforeseen twists in a three week race. Some important lessons here and I’ll try and factor that in for future fantasy guides. The gap between the dream team and the overall winner here is not that large, so some people clearly knew something I didn’t. Anyway, here it is, the best possible team at the 2021 Giro d’Italia.

Rider	Category	Cost	Points
Egan Bernal	All Rounder	24	2964
João Almeida	All Rounder	16	1521
Damiano Caruso	Climber	8	2060
Aleksandr Vlasov	Climber	16	1544
Davide Cimolai	Sprinter	8	1017
Gianni Moscon	Unclassed	6	764
Nikias Arndt	Unclassed	6	673
Lorenzo Fortunato	Unclassed	4	536
Daniel Felipe Martinez	Wildcard (Climber)	12	1475

DREAM TEAM – Total Cost = 100 Total Points = 12554
WINNING TEAM – Total Cost = 100 Total Points = 11203

So Yates, Sagan, and Ganna are the three high scoring riders who miss out here and the 4 point Fortunato squeezes in to make room for Martinez in the wildcard spot. The winning team chose a backbone of all three of the 8 point unclassed, Cavagna and Ulissi the other riders two after Ganna. They also went with the unusual combination of Martinez and Caruso in the climber category, but it paid off big time. I promise to keep more of an open mind for the Tour after overlooking several scenarios here, but well done for everyone who scored well. Also well done to the victor in our league, Ben Phippen won with 8466 points, and a Bernal Yates combination complete with three decent 4 pointers. They finished 328th overall. Cheers all and see you at the Tour!