OPQS riders Rigoberto Uran, Michal Kwiatkowski, and Matteo Trentin attended the 2015 Giro d'Italia presentation on Monday. The organizers said the goal of the 98th edition is a balanced parcours, with five mountain stages, seven sprint stages, seven medium mountain stages, a 17.6km team time trial, and a 59.2km individual time trial for a total of 3,481,8 kilometers. There are seven uphill finishes at this year's Giro.
"Once again it is a nice, tough Giro," said Colombian rider Uran, who finished 2nd in the overall classification in 2014. "Probably the two key points are the long time trial, and of course the last week of the Giro. The final week is always the most important part. You can be strong in the first two weeks and then, if you're not consistent, your Giro can fall apart in the last week. It can be complicated. The weather conditions can also be a factor during that time of year. We'll see if I participate or not. Now is too early to say, as we haven't determined my race calendar yet with the team. I have to ride Tour of Beijing, meet with the team, and then figure out my 2015 schedule.
"I have good memories of the Giro," UCI World Road Champion Michal Kwiatkowski said. "In 2012 I rode the Giro for the first time, and it was also the first grand tour of my career. Of course this helped me learned how to suffer and made me stronger than before. It's always a demanding race. To be honest you can't just have a look at all the climbing you have to do as the only factor. You also have to check beyond the profile and look into the details. The Giro is always a race where something can happen around each corner. In any case it's a nice parcours, and for sure it is one of for the climbers. As this edition seems to be more balanced at first glance, it could maybe be one for a more complete rider as well. As for me, I don't know what I will do yet. The decision about my race schedule will be made in the next weeks. I will see together with the team what we will do. We will look at the parcours of the Tour and then prepare our first ideas of the program for next year."
"Concerning the big picture of the Giro, the first feeling is that it's a difficult race, but probably less so concerning the transfers," Trentin said. "This will allow riders to recover better. Concerning riders with my skills, this is a Giro with three or four stages where you can have a sprint with small groups, — sprints with climbs before finishes, where riders like me can survive and try to contest the finale. The Giro is a race that you also need to see day-by-day what can happen. The terrain can be in favor of an attack or a different solution from what we have on paper, particularly with bad weather."
"It's an interesting Giro," Sport Director Davide Bramati said. "It will be immediately difficult with the early team time trial. But then with a few stages in the northwest of Italy it is up and down, and there is no room to recover. There are a few uphill finishes and a long time trial that can be crucial. But we will see how we can prepare for this race. We will go there and try to honor the race after the 2nd place of Uran this season."
