Giro 2021 Favourites stage 18: Sprinters or attackers?

It would be a bold investment for a sprint team to control the breakaway, while the finale is quite tricky. The last 35 kilometres feature four climbs. Not long, not steep, but enough to hurt a struggling sprinter. To make a sprint even more doubtful – Ewan, Merlier, Groenewegen, Nizzolo… there is hardly a sprinter left in Italy

In the first week of the Giro it would have been something else entirely. A fresh sprinter should be able to survive the 4% slopes. But no rider is fresh after almost three weeks and more than 3,000 kilometres of racing.

To get back to the question in the headline. Probably, the odds favour the attackers in the 18th stage. Yet, one can never be entirely sure. Riders like Sagan or Ulissi could order their team to control the breakaway.

Favourites 18th stage 2021 Giro d’Italia

*** Patrick Bevin, Diego Ulissi, Rémi Cavagna, Taco van der Hoorn
** Mikkel Honoré, Jan Tratnik, Andrea Pasqualon, Edoardo Affini
* Peter Sagan, Andrea Vendrame, Enrico Battaglin, Nikias Arndt

Another interesting read: route stage 18 Giro d’Italia 2021.

Giro d’Italia 2021 stage 18: finale route, profiles

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finale route

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finale profile