It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious Giro Rosa Racejunkie Awards!

Still recovering from the drama of 10, count 'em 10, days of smashing women's pro cycling in Italy? Still dragging your !@# after a dozen sleepless nights trying desperately to find a live feed in a language you can understand for a sum that won't make you sell a kidney?  Does a certain shade of pink still tease your senses and happily invade yer dreams?  Well freak out no further, fellow tifosi, because we're not done yet--it's Yer Incredibly Prestigious Giro Rosa Racejunkie Awards!  Prizes, for those so proud or so desperate for attention to claim 'em (I swear): a dashing custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap; a passel o' handsome racejunkie stickers to deface yer house, yer bike, or yer, well, face; and, a genuine random promotional tchotchke straight from my local second-hand haunts to display to all yer friends!  So on to yer glory, or shame:

Ceeeeeeeeeelebrate Good Times, Come On (Just Not Yet) Award: hey, it's happened to the best of 'em--just ask Erik Zabel.  There's nothing in front of you but the finish line, it's the biggest win of your career, you raise yer arms in justifiable triumph...and some wise!@# who didn't get the memo sneaks around you like some twerp cutting in front of you in line at the ice-cream place on a hot hot night.  Lucy Kennedy (Stage 3, with Marianne Vos rocketing around her *out of freakin' nowhere*) and Nadia Quagliotto (Stage 4, bested by Letizia Borghesi's brutal bike throw)--I know you won't make this same mistake next time!

!@#$ *This* Award o' 2019: we've got an incredible race here, people--what the !@#$ is with the insane lack of coverage?  *Why* am I watching 14 !@#$in' straight hours on some boring men's Grand Tour sprint stage, and I have to bust my !@#--and my wallet, and my data plan--tracking down a real feed for this one?  Yes, the Italian commentary, once I got it, was great--but cripes, if we can listen to hours of yammering about some decadent disgraced aristocrat's chateaux on *one* race, we can divert some resources to actual race commentary over on this end!

Video Vanguard Award: on the flip side of this equation, Voxwomen, you *rock*! And Trek-Segafredo, not only do you have phenomenal world champ/sprint goddess/spankin' new DS Giorgia Bronzini on hand, but you're in on this too.  Woot woot woot--now if you can crank up the coverage length even *more* next year, you've got your audience already!

We Will, We Will, Rock You! Prize: OH MY GOD ON ONE SINGLE STAGE THE TOUR DE FRANCE IS GOING OVER TWO METERS OF PACKED DIR--aw, shaddup and go home, you babies, between gravel grinding, bouncing over rocks out of the start gate and a pile of uphill cobbled finishes,the women were riding Paris-Roubaix half the entire !@#damn race! Geez, maybe Classics riders as GC contenders isn't so far fetched after all--at the Giro Rosa anyway!

Optics, People! Prize: look, sponsor prizes can be...quirky, whether it's a disturbingly large salami, a pleasingly ginormous St. Bernard, a humungous wheel of local cheese, or, y'know, your very own cow.  And no doubt, the Giro Rosa's lovely sponsor surely meant well and acted generously when it gave one lucky stage victor a handsome cookware set.  But didn't it occur to anyone it looks just a *little* odd to be giving a female champ a nice big set of "get in the kitchen and make me some pie" when no-one seems to recall a similar gift for the menfolk?  Of course, it was a nice present...but you give these women a !@#$in' mop next year, and there are gonna be *riots*!

Do You Hear What I Hear? Award: not so very long ago, comely 2006 Giro champ Ivan Basso looked like he was gonna damn near deck pissed-off two time winner we love Gilberto Simoni for, not so diplomatically, calling him an "extraterrestre" for his, well, very impressive performance (which didn't seem *quite* so unfair when Basso was busted shortly thereafter).  So did we really hear Italian icon Elisa Longo Borghini, in the wake of Annemiek Van Vleuten's race-smashing capture of the queen stage to  Passo Fraele (after she'd been deprived of her monstrously trained-for goal, the Passo Gavia, by some piddling snowflake race-organizer concern over "landslides"), remark that she was thinking, "Ok, the alien is gone and now the race for human beings begins"?  Yep, but apparently she didn't mean it that way--as Annemiek herself jokingly noted the reference the next day.  I mean, she *didn't* mean it that way...right?

Punk-!@# Move o' the Race: did you *see*...well, there was that time...uh, that is...wait, am I really seeing the top cyclists of the planet in a cutthroat competition crushing each other day in and day out  without sucker punches, sniveling smack talk, and cheap-!@# deliberate line interference only their mothers could love?  I mean, not to go all kumbayah and sing-alongs here, I didn't exactly see anyone holding back on the tarmac--but where the hell is Valverde when you need him?

Things That Make You Go Hmmm...Prize: am I the only one who thought that the traditional parade of podium babes looked a little, well, awkward up there this year?  And of course, they skipped the iconic kiss-and-lipstick-print shots.  So why not eye-candy man-babes in little shorts, or a healthy, diverse mix of equal-opportunity T&A?  Or better yet, baby goats?  *Everyone* loves baby goats!

Breakout Star of 2019: I don't know race *you* were watching, but for sheer tenacity, major efforts in the breakaways, and relentless grinding of her competitors down to a crying nub, for my money, Soraya Paladin rode a *great* freakin' Giro Rosa.  Yes, at 26 she's hardly a total newb, she had a great 2018 generally too, but here, this year, third on Stage 8 from a break, 4th on Stage 10, nearly snatched the maglia azzurra from Longo Borghini, 9th overall on GC--dang, I can't wait to see what she does next year!

And Last But Not Least, Domestique o' the Race: On the penultimate stage, she gutted herself, bypassing, then getting bypassed by, reigning world champ/perpetual threat/actual stage winner Anna Van der Breggen, all to give her excellent teammate Amanda Spratt a spot on the final podium.  Not bad to have the time-slaughtering Maglia Rosa causing the carnage for you, amirite?  Congrats on winning the whole Giro and all, Annemiek Van Vleuten--but this even bitchiner award is for you!

Well folks, they're short and sweet, but them's mine, and yours if  you care to claim 'em--just try not to earn anything *too* embarrassing next year!