Simon Gerrans pulls off a breakaway win in Giro, stage 14.

///Simon Gerrans pulls off a breakaway win in Giro, stage 14.

Simon Gerrans pulls off a breakaway win in Giro, stage 14.

 

Simon says "I win."

 

 

You remember the kid’s game? Simon says… “win a Giro stage.” Simon says, “do it today.”

When we last saw little, baby-faced Simon Gerrans in a breakaway, it was a winning move in a 2008 Tour de France stage. Although he looks young enough to be in college or parking cars at a restaurant, Gerrans has a confidence and killer instinct that he once again put to good use on stage 14 to San Luca. 

While all the main GC riders started a riveting game of “who’s marking who?” Gerrans (team Cervelo) joined the early breakaway group only 12 kilometers into the race. It took him another 160 kilometers to dump the dozen riders with him but eventually he crossed the line in fine style, a big smile on his youthful face.

We saw a lot of Danilo di Luca wasting energy with meaningless attacks and pointless accelerations that amounted to nothing –other than cutting into his reserves for the harder mountain stages to come. As Denis Menchov, a much more savvy tour rider said, the real action comes on stage 16 and 17. While nervous riders like Di Luca rev the engine to gain a pitiful 3 seconds, Menchov and Leipheimer conserve every ounce of energy for when things get critical. As Leipheimer stated, he and Astana are in excellent shape compared to other  teams (read LPR Brakes and Liquigas) that have burned up all their matches.

The monster mountains are almost here. And we expect a very happy Simon Gerrans to give his all for Carlos Sastre.

By |2024-03-18T16:26:08-07:00May 25th, 2009|Giro d'Italia|0 Comments

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