Giro d'Italia: The Closest Race Ever

As the whole cycling world (and a few new fans!) watch the climax of the Giro d’Italia tomorrow – the closest “Grand Tour” race in history – a word of thanks from everyone at Velon to everyone who has partnered with us for this incredible race. To all the teams and riders: from NTT (congratulations again on your fantastic Stage win on the Madonna di Campiglio) to Bahrain McLaren (cycling’s Slovenian love affair struck again with their win on Stage 16) to the superb win of the one and only Peter Sagan (masterclass of sprinting on Stage 10 from the BORA–hansgrohe star) the teams at the Giro have allowed us to show the fans inside their race. All their live performance data, all their on-bike videos and their celebrations and insights into this fascinating sporting event can only be delivered by Velon because of their wonderful support. Thanks to EY, who provide the sporting world’s most complicated IOT solution for the fans to see their sport in a way no others can. And, of course, the race organiser RCS, whose people have delivered a truly epic race in the hardest of circumstances. To all our friends in Italy, “molto grazie”.

The Giro – “the world’s hardest race in the world’s most beautiful place” - has once again served up an operatic story of the deepest disappointments (Geraint Thomas, the worst luck, Simon Yates, cruel fortune), incredible bravery (watch Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Jo?o Almeida – the first Portuguese man to wear the world famous Maglia Rosa - embody everything that “fight for the Pink Jersey” means on so many of the 15 days he held onto the lead) and, of course, sheer unbridled moments of delight – here’s what today’s Stage win meant to INEOS Grenadiers:

Jai Hindley (Team Sunweb) holds a lead of a few hundredths of a second over Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team INEOS Grenadiers) after 20 days of racing; that’s 85 hours 22 minutes and 7 seconds going head to head. The first rider goes off in the Individual Time Trial tomorrow at 13.30 CET to race to the finish in Milan (Hindley and Geoghegan Hart go last, later in the afternoon). For those who don’t follow the sport, in an “ITT” each rider goes solo, against the clock - think of downhill ski racing but it’s bike racing, so you they go harder for longer. Try riding a static bike at your absolute maximum effort but not for 2 minutes, go for over quarter of an hour (which is, for them, short… they did it for the best part of an hour last week on Stage 14); no, me neither.

Who will win? The Englishman has the edge over the Australian in this form of racing - everyone at Velon knows how good Geoghegan Hart is in a Time Trial, he stole the first Hammer Series race in Limburg in 2017 with this performance:

Will he break Team Sunweb hearts again? Never count against an Aussie when the win is on the line. Hindley will fight for Pink tomorrow and everyone at Velon will try our best to do what we always do – show the fans inside the race. Follow the action on any screen you can and be sure you have the VelonLive race centre open from www.velon.cc to take you through to the finish of what has been a wonderful Giro d’Italia. Thanks to everyone who made it possible. To all the teams, riders and workers at the race tomorrow: in bocca al lupo!

#giroditalia #velon