Giro d'Italia 2014

Finally they are sorting it out - Quintana and Roland are in a group 2 minutes ahead of Uran.

Either way, the commissaires need to step in now and resolve the issue - either the race was neutralised or it wasn't, but you cannot communicate this and then say you didn't.

I read on Twitter that it was the riders rather than the organisers who agreed to neutralise. Maybe some of them had other ideas?

Can they fine themselves?

^^I thought I heard that the official giro twitter said that it was to be neutralised but then deleted the tweet when it didnt happen.

As an aside to what's going on at the moment, the TV directors could really do a lot more to make race situations like this more understandable to viewers, bike camera shots looking over the shoulders of riders to groups ahead/behind and especially using the helicopters to provide panning shots between each group on the road instead of zooming in and out repeatedly on the same group whilst occasionally being obscured by trees would make a much better viewing experience when things start to break down a bit.

To be fair to the TV production team, a lot of the time they don't know what's going on from the images they have.

TV coverage of cycling could benefit from a technological makeover, but with a plethora of different race organisers and host broadcasters, it's hard to see how you could deliver this across all races.

I'm hearing Quintana is in virtual pink at the moment, and where is Pozzo? Two of his teammates up the road chasing down Cataldo presently.

I'm not convinced this is going to favour Quintana all that much. The gap is coming down and Uran is sat pretty in the chase group.

^^^Yeah I realise theres a lot lacking in terms of technology, but I'm talking about using what they have now more efficiently - surely as soon as the team know that the group has split up they should be on the radio to the helicopter team to start scanning the road and find out what's happening from their unique perspective being able to see large chunks of the terrain where the race is going on, rather than just sticking with the same shots and waiting for the messages to filter through from race radio? I'm talking about the people in control of the cameras rather than the commentators

No helicopters for most of today's stage because of the weather though.

But generally I agree, the tv coverage could be improved enormously.

I really liked the comparison shots of 2 different riders taking the same corner, would be nice to see that more often

And the gegs are off. Quintana looks like he's motivated to fuck everyone up, like a bunch of basic bitches.

^^^They had them up and running during the confusion towards the bottom of the descent though, just weren't being used to explain the situation.

With bad coverage due to weather and having no other stream available, attention has shifted to the commentating. I just wanted to add that the British Eurosport commentators are horrible. Talking minor stuff up and hammering it home over and over. Overly dramatizing, stacking euphemisms. Ugh. *mute.

^^^Yeah I realise theres a lot lacking in terms of technology, but I'm talking about using what they have now more efficiently - surely as soon as the team know that the group has split up they should be on the radio to the helicopter team to start scanning the road and find out what's happening from their unique perspective being able to see large chunks of the terrain where the race is going on, rather than just sticking with the same shots and waiting for the messages to filter through from race radio? I'm talking about the people in control of the cameras rather than the commentators

Your talking about a roaming camera.

You might have one if there was 2 groups. Ironically when there are several groups none are spare innit.

#sunsoutgunsout

Nairo out of company, unless they have recruited Pantano.

Rolland is the sherpa.

Your talking about a roaming camera.

You might have one if there was 2 groups. Ironically when there are several groups none are spare innit.

I'm not really sure the helicopters add that much when they're just hovering over one group on a mountain stage like this though. If they've got a camera bike on each main group then surely they can pull the helicopter back to help with the overall picture

Quintana's definitely seems to have recovered from whatever bug/allergy he had earlier in the race

Anyway, going to be an interesting final 17kms

Hesjedal coming back.

I'm assuming we'll see a Rolland stage win in exchange for his assistance all the way to the finish.

Does anyone know how many riders have dropped out from the giro so far? Crazy that greenedge only have 4 atm

Think Quintana will have to push on if he wants a big gap. Still a long way to go though.