Here’s how the first nine days of the Giro d’Italia unfolded
Here's how the first nine days of the Giro d'Italia unfolded
It’s the second rest day of the 2022 Giro d’Italia and the riders are taking a well-earned rest after their first nine days of racing. There have been plenty of engaging moments in those nine days – Mathieu van der Poel’s wonderful stage win, Thomas De Gendt taking another breakaway victory, Jai Hindley’s great comeback win – and some, well, less engaging moments.
Either way, there’s plenty to analyse from the first week or so of the 105th Giro and what better way to do so than with a bunch of charts from VeloClub member Cam Harris of bikechart.cc fame. Sure, looking at results sheets will give you a feel for who’s winning and who’s in the mix, but Cam’s charts provide a much better perspective of how the race is evolving. How the GC is shaping up, how the other classifications are unfolding, and plenty more besides.
So, head on down the page to see a bunch of Cam’s charts that tell the story of the first nine days of the 2022 Giro d’Italia, with a little bit of analysis along the way.
Stage wins by climbing volume and length
Let’s start off with something nice and simple. The following graph plots every stage of this year’s Giro by distance (x axis) and climbing volume (y axis), with the winner’s name beside each completed stage. The size of each circle shows the ratio of climbing to distance for that stage (i.e. a bigger circle means more vertical metres per kilometre).
Note there’s only one stage in this year’s race with more climbing than stage 9, won by Jai Hindley.
GC time swarm
This chart shows the gaps between all riders with a top 20 stage finish. The y axis shows the time gap from first place (in seconds). You can hover over the lines for rider names and positions at various points throughout the race.
That big collective dip near the start? That shows the impact the race's first mountain-top finish had on stage 4. Prior to that, most of the top riders were fast-finishers or good time trialists – riders that generally lost a bunch of time on Mt. Etna.
And that big uptick on the far right of the chart? That shows a whole host of GC contenders closing in on (but not quite catching) overall leader Juan Pedro López on stage 9.
GC position swarm
This next one shows the evolution of the GC in even more detail. Every rider in the Giro has his own line showing his GC position throughout the race. The y axis shows the rider's position on GC rather than their time gap to the leader, as was used in the previous chart. As you might be able to guess, riders with a dotted line that drop out the bottom of the chart are those that abandoned the race that day.
Its easy to see which days were most impactful for GC so far: stage 2 (the short individual time trial); the stage 4 summit finish; and then all three hilly days from stages 7 to 9 (particularly stage 9 with the mountain-top finish at Blockhaus). Note that stages 7 and 8 didn't do much to the very top of the GC, but stage 9 certainly did.
Timeline
This is a wonderful dynamic visualisation of the evolution of the GC throughout the race so far. The numbers in the circles show each rider's deficit to the maglia rosa at that point in time.
Timeline bar chart
Here's another dynamic visualisation which uses bar charts to show the evolving time gaps between those at the top of the GC. The bigger the bar, the bigger the gap to race leader López.
You can tell when the sprint stages happened, just by watching for when the bars barely move (if at all).
Points classification
Here we can see the emerging battle for the maglia ciclamino, the purple jersey of points classification leader. Hover over each line to see a rider's points tally at a given stage of the race.
This graph makes it very clear how impactful Arnaud Demaré's two stage wins were. Before stage 5 he was in fourth place in the points classification, with 44 points. By winning the next two stages he moved well ahead of the field with 147 points by the end of stage 6. He's the comfortable leader for now, but Biniam Girmay benefited from a great ride in the breakaway on a hilly stage 8. Watch this space.
KOM classification
It's a similar story for the maglia azzurra – the blue jersey of KOM classification leader. Lennard Kämna's day in the break on stage 4 netted him a big lead in the KOM classification in addition to his solo stage win, but he's been quiet since. Koen Bouwman's win on stage 7 had a similar impact, rocketing him into the lead, but he's since been usurped by Diego Rosa who got in the break on the tough stage 9.
This competition is really just beginning. One to keep an eye on for sure.
Stage wins by country
Let's finish with a couple more simple ones. This one shows which countries the stage wins have been shared by so far. Conspicuously absent? The host nation of Italy.
Stage wins by team
And here are the stage wins broken down by team. Demaré is doing the heavy lifting for Groupama-FDJ while Bora-Hansgrohe's two wins came from different riders (Kämna and Hindley). How will the stages be split by race's end?
What else can you see in the charts above? And what are you excited to see unfold over the next 12 days of racing? Let us know in the comments below.
As ever, thanks to Cam Harris for his time and effort in creating these terrific visualisations. If you're a fan of Cam's work, be sure to check out more at bikechart.cc or maybe even order some merch to support his hard work!
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