The 'battle against the clock', 'the race of truth'... whatever you call it, it's one man and their bike against the elements and the course.
Australian Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) enters the final stage of the Giro d’Italia as the big favourite to secure the overall win, and banish memories of 2020, when he went into the final day in the race lead only to lose to Tao Geoghegan Hart (INEOS Grenadiers).
This year, it’s Geoghegan Hart’s teammate Richard Carapaz who is the closest threat to the West Australian, but rather than being locked on time with his rival as he was in 2020, Hindley has a handy 1’25 buffer over Carapaz, 1’51 ahead of third-placed Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious).
That should prove enough leeway for Hindley to win the Giro d'Italia, especially when you look at the specifics of the course and the relative pedigrees of the top three riders against the clock.
The course
Stage 21 profile Giro d'Italia 2022
The climb of the Via Torricelle (4.5 kilometres at 4.6%) is at the sort of gradient where riders will have to still have to stay in their aerodynamic positions and grind out the watts.
The route of the time trial is a carbon copy of the final stage of 2019, when Carapaz won the Giro. The route takes in the intermediate climb on the Via Torricelle before a long descent along wide roads leads to a three kilometre flat section to the grand finish in a Roman amphitheatre in the centre of Verona.
The top three
In 2019, Carapaz had the race sewn up effectively, and even a relatively anemic time trial saw him take the overall win ahead of Vincenzo Nibali, who closed 39 seconds on that stage. Hindley, not riding for his own GC result back then, actually finished just six seconds behind Carapaz, while Landa finished 15 seconds faster than Carapaz.
This time they will be racing full-gas. The Stage 2 time trial showed that there is a gap in abilities, Carapaz was 28 seconds in arrears of stage-winner Simon Yates, with Landa five seconds further behind and Hindley six seconds off the former race leader.
The Ecuadorian has focused more on the discipline since that 2019 time trial and now consistently puts in solid performances against the clock, to the extent that he would be favoured to finish faster than both Hindley and Landa.
The three raced against each other in the 13.9km TT at Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this season, when Carapaz put 18 seconds into Hindley and 36 seconds into Landa. That sort of performance won't be enough here, Carapaz will require a ride more along the lines of world champion against the clock, Filippo Ganna, who won that day, with Hindley conceding a minute and five seconds.
The climb is a bit of an equalising factor, the nuances of aerodynamics reduced and the importance of power to weight coming more to the fore, but there are still enough kilometres of flat for time-trialling ability to tell.
The biggest unknown is how the labours of the past three weeks have taken their toll on riders, even Cadel Evans didn’t always produce his best performances at the end of three weeks (though when he did, it was pretty special).
Hindley did look very tired and whey-faced after his efforts on the Marmolada yesterday, but you’d prefer to be in his shoes looking strong on the climb, than like Carapaz slipping away dramatically, or even Landa conceding time.
If there were a time triallist of the calibre of Tadej Pogačar here, then we might be talking in earnest about whether Hindley could maintain his lead but it would likely take a stage-winning performance from Carapaz or Landa and a below-average or desperately unlucky performance from the Australian to swing it into the realm of possibility.
Hindley will set off down the start ramp at 12.48am AEST, catch hm going for glory on SBS!
The Giro d’Italia 2022 will finish with Stage 21, a 17.4 kilometre time trial in Verona that will decide the winner of the famous maglia rosa. Watch the full stage from 9.35pm AEST on SBS On Demand, with the SBS television coverage starting from 11.00pm AEST. WA viewers can watch from 9.00pm AWST on SBS VICELAND.
