“What a worthless transfer" - Bauke Mollema critical of 700km distance between final two Giro d'Italia stages
Cycling
A Giro d'Italia of missed opportunities for Bauke Mollema will be brought to an end later to today. After a frustrating race where he failed to claim the stage win he wanted, the 36-year-old has criticised the 700km transfer from the stage 20 time-trial to Rome for the ceremonial finale.
"What a worthless transfer,” Mollema said in an interview with Eurosport, expressing his frustration at the massive journey needed to go from stage to stage. "It's a shame we still have to go that way, but that's the Giro."
Coming into the race with the goal of taking a stage win to complete his set of Grand Tour victories, Mollema was a breakaway regular but was sadly unable to take that win he had so craved. On the stage 20 time-trial, the Trek - Segafredo admits he faded badly.
“I started well, but finished less. However, I didn't start super hard in my opinion," he says. "On the final climb, I tried to ride on the limit, hoping to ride top ten. But after five minutes it was done. It was raking to the top, but there was nothing in it.”
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- This from the man that almost destroyed the “essence” of cycling.Djs01-04-2025
- Regarding one point in the article: Vingegaard and Pogacar raced against each other at Monuments in the past - Il Lombardia and Liege, from 2020 to 2022. Pogacar's results are 3, 1, 1, and 1, while Vingegaard's are 84, 28, 14, and 16, respectively in the same races. But Vingegaard hasn't raced a Monument since 2022.RidesHills01-04-2025
- What, no Jay, Jonas. Remco, Primoz, etc.? Hope Cras doesn’t need an H this year.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Interesting, now’s the chance for all those who were grumpy about or against paying for subscriptions. But, if the pay is half decent one of girls from the women’s peloton might beat you to it ;-)Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- In those days the Tour was like Paris-Roubaix 3 weeks running :-)tMistermaumau01-04-2025
- The Dutch are a popular sporting target for foreign criticismMistermaumau01-04-2025
- Completely agree, and that’s in cases where the team even reaches the rider before he/she decides to get up by themself and start chasing. No protocol or rule will solve this perfectly, this is not a sport with a referee putting everything on hold whilst checks are made.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Is it just me or are the opinions of retired pros from certain parts of Northern Europe becoming increasingly Pythonesque? “In our day we had sandpaper chamois and barbed wire for bar tape when we rode Paris Roubaix, it used to be a proper race”……..I’m not even that big a Pogacar fan and I hope he does it just to shut them up.Jezla01-04-2025
- True, but then we've always known that real safety isn’t an objective, just enough for the facade not to crumble.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Oh, this sounds more spicy than I thought. I didn't watch the event.
KerisVroom01-04-2025