Giro d'Italia 2013 - (ITT, Gabicce Mare to Saltara)

When, as he described it, ‘on the night before Sports Personality’ Bradley Wiggins described to target the Giro D’Italia for his 2013 season, it is likely that he didn’t envisage himself being some 90 seconds down upon his main rivals going into the long individual time trial of the Giro D’Italia, but horrendous rain – some of which is falling back on the starting ramp as this is written – on the descent to Pescara cost him badly yesterday and now leaves him on a recovery mission today.

Dave Brailsford assures us that Wiggins – who seemed to be hesitant to put pressure or stress on his left elbow yesterday, although he may just have been avoiding another fall at all costs - is not injured, and if he is able to come here in top shape, then today is an ideal opportunity for him to strike over a distance longer than either of the Tour de France time trials he both won last year.

With rain and wind on various parts of the course, and a finishing ramp of a kilometres that has switchbacks and averages of 11%, it’ll be a brutal test for anyone and there could be a few surprises, but if Wiggins is in peak form and able to stay upright then it should be a matter of how much time he takes. Based purely on his best form – we’re assuming this was his Tour De France ending form - Wiggins can realistically expect to take anything upto 90 seconds on the field, and anything upto 3 minutes on Vincenzo Nibali. Things won’t be quite that simple here because of the extremely technical nature of the course compared to the relatively simple run he had then, but as a winner of the Paris Nice mountain time trial against the clock, you would hope that he’d be fine, and as the Olympic TT Champion, pacing should be no problem. He needs to have a special ride today to  make up the time – it should be remembered that Nibali has gone to great lengths to improve his time trailing ability and will be suited by the climbs and descents, while the same can be said of Ryder Hesdjal except to a greater extent – but with any luck he should be able to do so and he still has a fighting chance.

In terms of any value today, Hesdjal made some appeal to beat Nibali but today is a day best sat watching – Ryder does look too big at 9/2 for the Magalia Rosa given his time trial prowess however and may be worth backing before the day’s end.