Cycling

Eddie Dunbar still chasing form but retains high ambitions heading into Giro d’Italia

In-form former dual Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar remains very much the man to beat

Eddie Dunbar in action during last year's Giro d'Italia. 'It’s a three-week race and so you have to focus on your own team and your own capabilities and see where that takes you.' Photograph: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Eddie Dunbar in action during last year's Giro d'Italia. 'It’s a three-week race and so you have to focus on your own team and your own capabilities and see where that takes you.' Photograph: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Shane Stokes
Fri May 03 2024 - 06:00

Seventh last year in the Giro d’Italia, Eddie Dunbar will have a clear target in mind when the race rolls out of Venaria Reale on Saturday.

“If I build on last year, that’s going to be a big improvement,” said the 27-year-old on Thursday. “That’s my aim, I would say. Just to be in the mix there in the top 10 again, and see how it goes.”

Dunbar’s participation last year was his first chance to lead a team in one of cycling’s three-week Grand Tours. The Team Jayco AlUla rider climbed with the best and was sitting a superb fourth overall with three days to go.

And while illness caused him to drift back to seventh, his result was the best Irish Giro d’Italia showing since Stephen Roche won the 1987 edition.

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This time around things are a little more uncertain. Like last season, he had a hand injury which kept him off the bike and out of racing for several weeks. But while he recovered from that 2023 problem to take ninth in the Tour de Romandie, his participation in that same build-up race this time around was more muted.

Sitting 45th overall with one stage remaining, he and his team decided he would withdraw in order to give him an extra rest day before the Giro.

“Romandie didn’t go quite as well as last year,” he admitted. “I was just a bit off last week, the feelings weren’t quite there. I trained well after Basques [the Itzulia Basque Country race in early April] but I just wasn’t up to race pace last week. That was a bit frustrating. But I felt a bit better on the last hilly day.

“I can’t really put my finger on it, in terms of what was off. I guess it just happens sometimes, it is hard to get it completely right each year. Hopefully it was just an off week.”

This year’s Giro d’Italia totals 3,400 kilometres en route to Rome and contains plenty of the climbing stages that Dunbar relishes. Saturday’s opener is a punchy undulating race to Turin which could open gaps in the field; Sunday’s race to the Santuario di Oropa is harder again, with the first summit finish of the race.

It’s entirely possible things will blow apart on that second stage. With his below-par Romandie performance in mind, Dunbar accepts it might take him a little time to fire on all cylinders.

“Hopefully I can find a bit of form in the next few days and just limit losses,” he said.

Eddie Dunbar of Ireland and Michael Hepburn of Australia and Team Jayco AlUla prior to the 106th Giro d'Italia 2023. Photograph: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Eddie Dunbar of Ireland and Michael Hepburn of Australia and Team Jayco AlUla prior to the 106th Giro d'Italia 2023. Photograph: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

“Last year, I went into the race with confidence after that good ride in Romandie. I had a lot of work done and I was confident in that. Obviously this year, I don’t have the same confidence going in. But it is up to me to try to find that confidence and to build into it.”

One rider who won’t be short of swagger is Tadej Pogačar. Winner of the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021, he finished second overall in the same race in the past two years but looks entirely back to his best this season.

The Slovenian has just competed 10 days so far this year, but has already claimed seven wins. A 70 per cent success rate in cycling is staggering and harks back to the days of the legendary Eddy Merckx.

So does lining out against the UAE Team Emirates rider intimidate Dunbar?

“No, I don’t find it intimidating at all,” he said, with conviction. “He’s obviously at an incredible level. He mightn’t have raced the Giro before, but he understands that it is a tough three-week race, and he definitely won’t be taking it for granted.

“I think he will race it like he rides every race, and that is aggressively.

“It’s hard to see any other result in Rome than him in pink,” he continued, referring to the leader’s jersey. “But it’s not intimidating at all. It’s a three-week race and so you have to focus on your own team and your own capabilities and see where that takes you.

“If the front of the race is going, you have to try to stay with it. Because if you don’t, then you’re definitely not going to be winning.”

Sometimes one of the most complicated of sports is that simple. Be strong enough to remain at the front when things blow apart. If Dunbar can ride into form and then hang tough with the best, matching or bettering last year’s result may yet be on the cards.

Shane Stokes

Shane Stokes

Shane Stokes is a contributor to The Irish Times writing about cycling