The 2019 Giro d'Italia is coming to a close and several top teams – including Team Ineos, Deceuninck-Quick-Step, CCC Team and Team Sunweb – have yet to win a stage, leaving some desperate faces in the peloton.
The Giro ends outside Verona's famous Arena on Sunday with a time trial. With the next two mountain stages, it is one of three chances left for the remaining teams without a stage win to get something from the race.
"You get the feeling that the Giro's going to come to a close and people want to leave with something in their pockets," Joe Dombrowski explained.
Despite Hugh Carthy's rides, Dombrowski's EF Education First team is one of those without a win. Also Dimension Data with Brit Scott Davies, who is riding his first Grand Tour.
"I don't know if I see desperate faces in the group, but every team comes into this with a lot of ambition," Davies said.
"There are only 21 stages and not every team can win a stage. That's how it goes. We are not the only team in that boat, but we have to take the positives and keep on working hard.
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"Even though we picked up some nice results in the sprint days, it probably hasn't been as as a successful Giro as we hoped for. But the level's high and we learned a lot from this race, we are still a young team."
Irishman Eddie Dunbar came close to winning the Pinerolo stage, but Ineos primarily came to support its young classification team and to build up its win tally.
Joe Dombrowski and EF Education will look for a chance in the remaining mountain stages (Sunada)
(Image credit: Yuzuru SUNADA)
"Some teams come here to win stages and some come here to solely focus on GC. You'll find a lot of the teams focusing on GC haven't won a stage, that's the risk a team takes when they decide to race for the overall and not the stages," said Dunbar.
"You have people who want to win stages, going into the race solely focused on that. Pavel Sivakov is one of the strongest in the race and we need to give him the support he deserves. We are going to help him stay in the top 10. And you never know, the white jersey may come front that. If stage win comes from it, it is good."
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Gregor Brown is an experienced cycling journalist, based in Florence, Italy. He has covered races all over the world for over a decade - following the Giro, Tour de France, and every major race since 2006. His love of cycling began with freestyle and BMX, before the 1998 Tour de France led him to a deep appreciation of the road racing season.
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