Giro d’Italia – Giro ‘Staged’ 2

Mark Cavendish - 2012 Giro d'Italia Stage 2
Mark Cavendish – 2012 Giro d’Italia Stage 2 (image courtesy RCS Sport)

By Simon Cadzow No, it?s not a typo. Did anyone doubt the result? [W:Mark Cavendish]. Stage 2 206km Herning to Herning, again. Yesterday I asked you about the flag. Today legend no.2 (skip to the end if you already know the race) Longer stage than yesterday: approximately 2300%. Sounds a lot when you put it like that. Being a flat stage that takes in part of the coast you can write the script, hence the title. Is it staged? Well I?m sure others would have something to say, such as the other 21 teams who didn?t win, but according to SKY it went exactly how it was supposed to go. For the record Cav now has 31 wins in grand tours and unlike [W:Thor Hushvod] none of these include a mountain stage. When Cav wins he praises his teammates. Always. Ian Stannard did ?incredible? reeling a break by being on the front for 150km in the wind. And ?G? read [W:Geraint Thomas], lead him through some minor carnage, a crash in the final 150m, to be in the ?ideal place to take the win? with Matt Goss O-Greenedge 2nd. To quote Cav, ?I?m very, very happy?. Yep, winners are grinners. There were the obligatory breaks that the peloton reeled in. There was a cat 4 climb that gave a KOM jersey; kudos to Alfredo Balloni – Farnese Vini (who?). But the moment of real interest came when [W:Taylor Phinney], race leaders, chain dropped with about 8km to go forcing him, Danilo Wyss and other teammates to pull him back in a mini repeat of yesterday. They rejoined with 4km to go and he stayed for another day in pink. So….the flag… Theory no.2 Dannebrog means Danish cloth and the flag is actually the oldest state flag in the world still in use by an independent nation. Theory no.2 states that the cloud fell from the sky just as in theory 1, but it was a completely different battle in a completely different place: Fellin (small town no king involved) in a different year, 1208. It appears that the smaller town was replaced by a larger one with a king, Reval and the Estonian ruler Valdemar 2nd : never let truth get in the way of a great story. Either way the flag fell from the sky here too. If tomorrow?s theory is also a flag falling from the sky I?m going to test it. I think that if I take a flag up high enough and then drop it, it just might fall.

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