Giro di Sicilia 2023 Recap
The Giro di Sicilia recently ended and we found the change in positions on the final day incredibly interesting. Worth doing a retrospective on the results in our opinion and how it will affect our future betting.
As a reminder, there were four days in the multi-day stage race, with UAE Team Emirates being the strongest squad, and every other team being hit or miss. Stage one and three were both hilly stages, but only stage one had a final hill climb.
Stage four was the brutal widow-maker or "queen" stage, with three HC climbs. Just take a look at how much it changed the GC positions in the following two images.
Stage 3 Positions
Stage 4 Positions
Even though Finn Fisher-Black was performing well in the early hilly stage races, he couldn't quite hold on to the top three in the final day as Lutsenko broke away with Meintjes and Albanese.
Look at how Alexis Guerin and Samuele Zoccarato moved up 48 and 34 positions respectively.
More importantly however is Meintjes moving up 13 positions to finish 2nd. This surprised us, and when it comes to betting (we really only care about a top three position for each way bets) is what matters.
How will this affect our future betting?
It's a testament that multi day stage races are marathons not sprints, and that we should never count someone out - especially at minor races.
At the grand tours such as the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France, large teams will have better control over the break and how much time gaps they allow. But for these less well known multi day stage races, where the start list isn't stacked, there's more possibility for variability in the end result.
Which is good from a bettors angle. If a bettor can spot the value picks that may break away on the final day and cause a drastic shift in the GC they can earn some serious cash.
Meintjes odds would have been longer coming into the final day given his 15th place in the standings, and a clever punter could have capitalized on that.
