Giro 2022 Favourites stage 18: For fast men #5

The Muro di Ca’ del Poggio is a 1.1 kilometres climb at 12.3%. Would make an interesting finish, but the sprinters can rest assured. The Muro is the only real obstacle of the day and it is crested with roughly one hour of racing ahead.

A predominantly flat stage in the last week of the Giro is very usual, but in recent years those races were very long. Not this time though. The route is merely 152 kilometres long. So it should be easy to control for the sprint teams.

On the other hand, the extremely long 19th stage of 2020 was shortened to 124 kilometres after a strike. Remarkably enough, the sprint teams made a half-hearted attempt to bring the breakaway back – and failed. Josef Cerny took the spoils that day.

Mark Cavendish won the first bunch sprint of this edition. In stage 3, the British phenomenon outgunned Arnaud Démare and Fernando Gaviria with a powerful performance.

Predicting the winner of a sprint stage in the last week of the Giro is always challenging, as at least half of the fast men usually don’t make it that far.

[This article was written before the start of the Giro. We’ll update it on the third rest day]

Favourites 18th stage 2022 Giro d’Italia

*** Caleb Ewan, Mark Cavendish, Arnaud Démare
** Magnus Cort, Giacomo Nizzolo, Davide Ballerini
* Rui Costa, Andrea Vendrame, Sylvain Moniquet, Matteo Sobrero

Another interesting read: route 18th stage 2022 Giro.