Kittel in Pink
So, Marcel Kittel is in the Maglia Rosa as I had predicted the other day. Not bad for a sprinter, right? OK, OK, he is not the first sprinter to wear the pi k jersey. His Cavness wore it a few years back and I am sure there were others before him and there will be more in the future, too.
What is remarkable, though, is that in the last 2 stages that he won, he was 2 to 3 bike-lengths ahead of everybody else. Elia Viviani was second but nowhere near, really. So, is Kittel the new Cavendish? Only time will tell, really. There is one more reason to be looking forward to the Tour, isn’t it?
On a different note, I missed the Giro today. No racing? Why? Oh, it’s the transfer from Holland to Italy. Nice to have the Grande Partenza in different countries, but this is a bit silly. Team Sky ran two separate “teams”; one in Holland (that now go back home) and one in Italy, who have been preparing everything there, waiting for the cyclists to arrive.
Other teams, with smaller budgets, have to drive over 2000km across Europe to get equipment and staff to Italy. All the riders where flown on a chartered plane by the organisers, though. At least they had an easy ride, just this once. Below you can see a couple of tweets by Trek-Segafredo and Kim Rokkjær their team chef.
#giro 1rst rest day. Transfer to Italy. pic.twitter.com/Ul7TMacupE
— Trek-Segafredo (@TrekSegafredo) May 9, 2016
@TrekSegafredo – yeah right the “big ones” by flight – but some of us have this view for 2300k pic.twitter.com/q7kD4hfP7k
— Kim Rokkjær (@kimrokk) May 9, 2016
OK, Stage 4 is in Italy, so we are looking forward to it. Let’s see how long Kittel can cling to the Maglia Rosa for.