RUI COSTA

His energies are far better devoted to getting into breaks, even though he’s too good to be break fodder

Rui Costa either had a very good or a very bad Giro d’Italia. The good news for the Portugese rider was that he was a perennial ixture in the successful breaks – the nose for a good escape that brought him a rainbow jersey in 2013 is still in good working order. The bad news was that he didn’t win a stage, but came second on three occasions, to Omar Fraile, Pierre Rolland and Mikel Landa, all in di ferent circumstances.

Try to de ine Rui Costa and you’ll realise that he’s no specialist. He’s a Classics rider, with wins at the Worlds and GP de Montréal, podiums in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Il Lombardia and the GP de Québec, and top 10s in Amstel Gold and Flèche Wallonne. But he’s also a stage race GC rider – between 2012 and 2014 he was third in the Tour de Romandie and irst in the Tour de Suisse. He’s also been second in Paris-Nice, third at the Dauphiné and top 10 in País Vasco. In the Grand Tours he dabbled brie ly in the GC, but after coming out of the Alps in the top 15 in the 2014 Tour, he got sick and retired. He’s having a decent 2017 – second in Oman and irst in Abu Dhabi were a good start for his UAE Emirates team. But his best at the hilly Classics was 14th in Liège. At the Giro he immediately dropped out of contention in the GC (for which some saw him as an outsider for the top 10), and started stage hunting. Costa seems to have worked out that he’s strong enough to be a GC rider, but that he won’t break into the top 10 of a Grand Tour, so his energies are far better devoted to getting into breaks, even though he’s too good to be break fodder. However, fans arguably remember stage wins more than 12th overall. Costa has realised the same, but he’ll need to convert breaks into wins if he continues in this vein.