The 2017 Giro d’Italia Femminile, or the Giro Rosa, kicks off for the first time ever with a team time trial. It’s common enough for an individual test against the watch to get the race going, but we’ll have a different spectacle for this year.
The organisers have brought the race to the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region for its Grande Partenza, and the setting should see things get going beautifully.
This will be a chance to lay down an early marker in a ten-stage race that might be even more open than normal because there is no big ‘set-piece’ mountain stage.
Stage 1 route
Not much in the way of finesse for this cronometro a squadre. It’s pan-flat, starting at four meters above sea level in Aquileia, and finishing 11.5 kilometers later in Grado, just two meters above sea level.
There’s barely a corner, except for a slight dog-leg to the right at half-distance, until we enter the final kilometer. The major obstacle could be the wind as the second part of the course takes the teams out across the open water of the Marano lagoon. If it starts buffeting, then the difference could be made in seconds between the big teams.
Footage from the Orica-Scott women as they preview the TTT corsa.
Over such a distance, however, the time gaps shouldn’t be cataclysmic, and there shouldn’t be any overall contender blasted out of contention from the off.
The rivals
In theory this should be a straight shoot-out between Boels-Dolmans and Canyon-SRAM. Boels won the Worlds TTT and the Open Suède de Vårgåda TTT in 2016, and there are few of these events on the women’s calendar.
Boels also put 31 seconds on Cervelo-Bigla and Sunweb, and 34 on Canyon-SRAM, over 19.6 kilometers at the Healthy Aging Tour in April, so we can expect things to be a bit closer here.
So specialisation isn’t something most of the teams get to work on; it seems to be more that they hope they have enough powerhouse riders to blast through a course.
Cervelo-Bigla can’t be ruled out as they were on the podium in the Worlds, but it’s hard to see any other squads fighting for the podium. Sunweb don’t have Ellen Van Dijk, for example, so it looks like the big three teams, and then the rest.
The first squad is off the start ramp at 16.45 Italian time, and the teams are spaced three minutes apart. If they’re flying to the fastest estimated schedule, then the winners should be home in about 13’45” to 14’00”, on a 50 kilometers per hour average speed.