Andre Greipel doesn’t even feel the need to hit peak pedal-mash

2017 Giro d'Italia, stage two

Greipel wins! Take that, pedals.

The man they call The Gorilla (but who I call The Basking Shark on account of his gigantic mouth) didn’t even seem to need to hit full pedal-mashing fury to take stage two. He dedicated the victory to his mum.

It was the seventh Giro d’Italia stage win of the German’s career. For a man who isn’t all that heralded, Andre Greipel really has been racking up a sizeable collection of Grand Tour wins. He’s now notched at least one – although quite often only one – every year since 2008.

Today’s win also gave Greipel the overall lead thanks to the magic of bonus seconds.

Speaking of seconds

It’s worth pointing out that overall contenders have already been losing time. Ilnur Zakarin lost 20 seconds today and yesterday Steven Kruijswijk and Wilco Kelderman lost 13 seconds.

It’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but is a sign that the racing is challenging already.

Stage three

2017 Giro d'Italia, stage threeThe organisers say the stage is “basically flat” and that the last 10km is “completely flat”.

Foodwise, a quick acknowledgement of walnut marinated dogfish, but dish of the day in this region has to be sea urchin spaghetti.


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