Rome and a victory parade. There is suspense to come. Don’t tune expecting action from start to finish, but there is massive pressure on Jonathan Milan to salvage a sprint win at the end.
Stage 20 Review: a fifth stage win for Jonas Vingegaard. Once again Felix Gall tried to follow Vingegaard’s move then thought better of it a few seconds later while the others could not move. Gall was second, Hindley third, the podium in order.
There was no little else to decrypt on a day that proved as formulaic as a sprint stage but Afonso Eulalio finished 7th, soaking up an attempt from Davide Piganzoli before countering and jumping away to secure the white jersey.
The Route: the same as usual, a trip to the coast and then back through the Eur district before laps around Rome.
The Contenders: imagine if Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) wins? Because it’s better than imagining he loses, hauling his carcass around Italy for three weeks and not winning a stage despite being rated among the best sprinters in the world and winning the points competition in this race twice. He’s been close this month, he’s got a solid lead-out and has made mistakes before that can be corrected today.
Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) has thrived in this Giro and jumped into every opening he’s got. He’s got three wins and the points jersey so can sit up and eat an ice cream if he wants but that’s hardly his style.
Dylan Groenewegen has been close but that’s his problem, the Rockets have a strong squad for the final 5km and the lead-out but their point man isn’t the force he used to be.
Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) has been close and now gets a team ready to help him again.
 |
Milan |
 |
Magnier |
 |
Groenewegen, Lund |
Weather: sunny and 29°C
TV: KM0 is at 4.45pm and the finish is forecast for 6.45pm CEST. Tune in for the sprint finish.
Postcard from Rome
Today’s finishing circuit goes past the Colosseum, the amphitheatre that used to host gladiatorial fights for pleasure of the Emperor and others, something that most people have evolved beyond.
One of the traditions was the Emperor could raise a thumb or lower it to seal the fate of a fighter, something that could not happen today.
Only one rider who won’t see the Colosseum today is Bardiani’s Enrico Zanoncello. He was thrown off the race after the Milan stage for head-butting another rider. Some brief video footage doing the rounds shows him heading Robert Donaldson of Jayco who crashes hard, sliding at speed. An “act of blatant aggression” wrote Cycling Weekly.
Only did Zanoncello really deserve this instant verso pollice judgement? It’s more likely a wave of riders sees GFDJ’s Paul Penhoët collided with Zanoncello and the Italian is left trying to stay upright and in the split second this balancing act sees his neck and head hit Donaldson rather than a move designed to intimidate or destabilise Donaldson, who was after all going backwards having done his lead-out work.
If a bigger name rider was involved or just from bigger team things might have been different. See the appeal by Peter Sagan and the UCI after his exclusion from the 2017 Tour de France for the case study. But as a ProTeam reliant on a wildcard invite there’s less room for Bardiani to argue back, they’re supposed to gallop away at KM0 and provide animation, not litigation. This does feel a bit Roman.
Only so much though. The commissaires at the Giro are not reclining on velvet seats while being fed grapes. They’re volunteers, often taking unpaid time off work and given a €200 per day allowance, an economy flight to and from the race and the beige chinos/navy blazer uniform and little else. In exchange they get privilege to see the race up close but it’s not the imperial tribune.
It won’t be fixed today but given team budgets have soared, even for Bardiani, any rulings can be very expensive for riders and teams on the ruling end. Another Sagan-like incident from 2017 this summer or next and – these things happen after an incident, not out of foresight – soon there could be calls to professionalise cycling’s referees, or if not have some kind of tribunal on stand-by.
Like a lot of other fans we love your content. Sort out the “sold” lead out for Milan and delete the “ns” above and delete my comments. I will be wearing your socks today to celebrate another Grand Tour.
Thanks as always for the balanced account of Zanoncello’s disqualification. The controversy seems to have been put in the shade by what happened in the women’s race though! Loved the blogging and discussion below the line throughout the race.
Once again, you’ve been an indispensable companion for the Giro. Thank you for what you do.
Is there any likelihood of a new inrng jersey in the near future to help support you?
The jersey in the past worked well because Prendas did so much from the design to commissioning the order with Santini, holding the stock and then the shipping. Doing all that here… well it would mean less time for the blog. There are not many costs here either.
But am thinking of a t-shirt as there are more companies that offer a service that Prendas did, even have a design in mind.
Massive up vote.
Once again, thanks for the work put into the daily Giro blog posts. Always a treat to read.
A Giro to forget for Milan and one for Magnier to remember. Otherwise, Visma’s plan worked almost flawlessly, Decathlon team seems to have gone up a level, and crashes and illness blighted the plans unfortunately of too many.
Will the organizers rethink the idea of locking one top rider, as it does kill the GC competition?
A Giro without Vingegaard might have been exciting. But remember Almeida was supposed to ride, if we do hypotheticals he could have cruised away for the win if he’d not been out of form/ill in the spring.
But the Giro needs some kind of star rider at the top. The problem is its not always their choice, eg Vingegaard seemed destined to ride on the evening of Hautacam last year when he lost 2 minutes to Pogačar on the first summit finish; maybe Evenepoel tries the Giro next year but it could be as much down to Red Bull’s Tour and how Lipowitz fares too rather than a love of the course or a juicy appearance fee etc.
Yeah, as Pogacar and Vingegaard have won the Giro, then I suppose we’re left with Remco 🙂 Maybe a certain young French hopeful might also be tempted.
Just to round out the “Lazarus” comparisons, I think Egan Bernal might well qualify for that moniker after claiming to be on death’s door then pulling Arensman up the climb on Saturday.
Thanks for this Grio. Love this blog and the way you blogging it. Also likes the comments below the the line as someone said.
Many thanks to our host for the excellent coverage and to the commenters for the reflections – and congratulations to all the riders who finish today.
Thanks for the previews, the predictions, and the postcards.
I’m a relatively new fan of pro cycling but these previews have become a part of my morning routine during the Giro and the Tour. They are consistently excellent. Thank you, and please keep doing them!
+ 1 thanks for all the previews and postcards.
Can the break again like Milan?
Milan was probably enough for a surprise. Think Decathlon, Rockets and Lidl-Trek just have to control the race today. Alec Segaert might be plotting a move though?
I hear vingegaard broke pantanis 1998 record for the piancavallo by 3 seconds yesterday.
Many thanks for your informative previews of the Giro stages.
They set me up for the day.
I want Milan to win today purely because he seems like a likeable guy who wants to win very badly. Unfortunately for him though I think Magnier will get another canny leadout from Stuyven and get the win again.
Its been a good Giro I would say. Nothing too surprising obviously but its been enjoyable viewing. Thanks as always for your daily efforts, I haven’t commented much but have read them all with breakfast!
As an aside to my own comment a nice aspect of this Giro has been seeing Quick-Step back to being Quick-Step, providing a delux leadout to a sprinter who you could argue isn’t the strongest in the race (on reputation if not form) and winning multiple stages. They might have to wait until the post MvdP/Pogacar era to regain pre-eminence in the classics but at least they’re under way.
I thought something like that too
With thanks to our host and all here 🙏🏻
Thanks for another fantastic set of previews – it has been an enjoyable month of May!
Orders of arrival yesterday in the top 11 is almost exactly the same as the GC… That’s why this Giro, even if some of the last stages were nice, was not really this interesting GC-wise. It’s like, baring some exceptions, the places were decided in the first mountain finish and change very little after (Caruso coming in the top 10, Pellizzari fading).
But I wonder if it’s not one effect of the new nutrition-era of cycling, coupled with powermeters, scientific preparation and all that stuff : strengths are very stable and we will have less and less GC changes in a GT.
I think that you’re right, although it’s partly a self-fulfilling prophecy: everybody knows “the right way” to manage efforts and racing, everybody does the same, and the result is just what you’d expect.
But I believe there’s another couple of factors to be considered: to start with, this Giro was very much Vuelta-like and the phenomenon you describe above is very akin to what normally happens at the Vuelta.
Secondly, to have such a dominant leader affects the way everybody else behaves. Red Bull might have been more daring if they were fighting for the maglia rosa instead of “what podium spot they’d sit on”, same for Decathlon. Mutual risk exposure might have incremented instability and change through the three weeks.
Finally, we ourselves tend to get blinded by the main results, which were indeed very steady (superteam effect, also).
But if you check the Blockhaus, many more things actually changed. Bernal grew much stronger as the race entered the third week and high mountains. Blockhaus vs. Final GC mirrrors it.
Moreover, Pellizzari, Rondel, Ciccone and O’Connor disappeared from the top-10 for different reasons and to different extents. It’s a 40% shift and we’re speaking of strong riders in a very serious stage not just a random fluke.
On the contrary, Gee-West climbed up the ranking thanks to a strong TT but also growing form and an aggressive attitude in the only stage vaguely similar to a tappone. Piganzoli and Caruso while on domestic duties (partly *thanks to* domestic duties) showed they’re great fondo athletes, despite this course didn’t reward much that type of athlete.
I actually think that the 4th-12th GC fight was one of the best aspect of this Giro (along with very lively daily action for the stage): normally the top-10 is a history of defensive riding and survival, this time it proved much more entertaining. And the contest for the lower podium spots wasn’t bad, either, although surely a bit more mediocre as it was more about conservative racing.
Thanks inrng for the coverage – thorough, thoughtful and incisive as usual.
Looking forward to a t-shirt edition 🙂
+1 for that commissaries situation description. The allowance has gone up, I see.
Yeah, as a volunteer it is sometimes rather intimidating to have to DQ, fine or in other ways discipline a multi millionaire rider. Though, these are few but still most of the wt riders make more money than I ever did as a commissaries.
I am impressed by the colleagues at the women’s giro who DQ’ Wines for riding an under weight bike. How did they get suspicious about that?
Do you suggest the jury received a hint and specifically singled out Wiebes’s bike for inspection? How often is the weight of the bikes typically checked?
Surely the stage winner’s bicycle is first in line for post-race checks, in the same way the racer themselves is first to dope testing.
Yes, I didn’t put it in but until recently it was about €80 a day. I can imagine one ability to be a top commissaire is to address a millionaire rider and team manager clearly and know that rulings can be a huge deal.
Bike weights are normally checked for championships and big races, but prior to riding. Hence I wonder about this incident. The weights from the UCI are calibrated before weighing and – as far as I remember – stamped with an accuracy of +/- 5 g. So 20 below limit is an acceptable low. But hey, this could probably be the wax wearing off her chain during the race? Or, any chemists out there? a slightly lower tyre pressure than usual?
Well, it is about time they put in a raise of allowance, so they probably did. Back in my days, the going rate was 105 Euros for regular races, World Championships included and 160 Euros for WT and grand tours.
And yes, you certainly have to be sharp when approaching a rider and his team manager; know you stuff, always stay courteous and in clear terms explain the situation. At the same time you have to do anything you can to avoid the press.
We have a saying that if you (rider, DS, etc) did not notice we were there, everything went fine.
Anyways, so many thanks again for these previews and your wonderful blog. It is always a pleasure to read – especially in this commercialised world of everything.
I was shocked. Reportedly they said it was because of a total 20 grams negative difference to minimum weight, although the team defended that the series of measurements could have a 50 gr difference between each other. How does that work?
I would hope the way that it happened was that the initial weighing was 6.78 and then a team representative summoned to view a re-weighing which resulted in 6.73 – or the other way around.
But my hope that this is the way it worked comes from also being acquainted with the motorsport world where the processes are defined clearly and any technical disqualification is documented thoroughly. See for example this story from the Bathurst 12 Hour earlier this year which explains the *four* measurements conducted to get to a point where the officials and team were all in agreement that the car would be disqualified.
https://speedcafe.com/bathurst-12-hour-news-2026-earl-bamber-motorsport-porsche-disqualified-technical-breach-explained/
I guess you must be familiar with the legendary Ada Pace anecdote when 2nd and 3rd placed insisted for a further weight check on her car as they couldn’t accept a woman had beat them, only for the jury to check again all the podium and discover that it was actually 2nd and 3rd who didn’t comply hence DSQing them both.
Dunno if it’s history or legend but quite telling all the same.
> How did they get suspicious about that?
They didn’t need to be suspicious. She was the provisional stage winner and therefore would automatically have been selected for anti-doping and equipment checks.
Not necessarily an equipment check unless the UCI changed procedures lately. They might have, though.
Checks would for the most part be done prior to riding, not after riding, TTs and U19 bikes excepted. U19 was checked for gearings in the way back time and you would check all bikes prior to racing, first 3 or so after riding.
Well then that would leave a big gaping hole to start with a well-weight bike and change to a kilo lighter during the race or do you really check ALL spare bikes of a team before the race?
We don’t even check all bikes before the race, TTs excepted.
At least we did not use to do that but times change and so does procedures, as I suggested.
I would like to echo the thanks of the others for another superb GT blogging run. The review of the previous day’s stage, the preview for the current stage, and then the ‘postcard’ were like 3 for the price of 1, with each offering something to enjoy.
I was thinking about the other comment about the order of finishing yesterday’s stage as being essentially the same as the GC, but think if Eulàlio had been a stronger TT’er, then he may have been able to hold off Vingegaard for longer in the mountains, or Bahrain could have ridden more defensively?
I do think that many teams have only one path to victory – or if the leader is so much stronger – then maybe the race will always come down to “who can ride up the steepest mountain the fastest” – but, barring Pogacar who seems to be able to sprint the fastest, climb the fastest, TT the fastest, gravel bike the fastest, etc., I wonder if Bahrain, for example, had been willing to gamble on a mid-mountain stage – and try to ambush Visma – that they might have been able to take more time to try to hold off Vingegaard?
Anyway, I have enjoyed this Giro!
It’ll be a quick point in the post race review probably but one thought is that if Visma did not gift Eulalio as much time then Piganzoli would be in white. That’s hindsight of course but that is what reviews are for. Both riders were revelations in the race.
As others have said, thanks for a superb stage by stage guide!
Would definitely be interested in purchasing an INRNG tee if you’re to release these in future
That Sagan thing was a real shame and a stain in Cav’s career.
Whatever the subsequent agreement, it prevented the Slovak to further improve his green jersey record.
Thanks again Inrng for your excellent coverage and deep dives! You always make it interesting, even when the race doesn’t do much to help. This Giro was a great example of the new way of racing and a reminder of how lucky we were to have such an interesting denouement last year. Will we ever get true jeopardy in a grand tour in 2026? At least this dominant performance by JV gives us a little more hope for July. Other than that, a very impressive defensive performance by Eulalio, who had looked sure to lose the white jersey at some point.
Once again I find myself looking forward to the writeups and reviews as much as, if not more than, the actual race. I look forward to the Tour–I’ll be travelling for a lot of it and unable to watch, but look forward to following the race here.
Vingegaard is very relatable as a cyclist with his inability to ride free-handed properly.
However, that is were the relatability ends already. 😉
I’ve been watching the race with my mother (and occasionally commenting) and her opinion was that it was not a particularly good Giro in many places. Her comment (which I largely agree with) was that many teams don’t seem to have been trying to do anything in the race (except passively accrue UCI points). Other than Visma (GC), Soudal (points) and Astana (stages), most teams didn’t have any aim and left with nothing. Most teams left the competition with no wins of any type, Groupama were practically invisible – it was only on stage 14 that I remember seeing any of their vehicles, and other teams were not much better.
Cycling is a sport dependent on publicity and those teams have nothing to point their fans and sponsors at for achievements. Moreover with certain honourable exceptions (Narvaez, Leknessund, Movistar and especially Ciccone), many riders do not seem to have had the motivation to try to do anything until over halfway through the race. Why weren’t teams who didn’t have a GC guy trying to get in the break in Bulgaria and in the first week in Italy? The attitude seems thoroughly self-defeating. One can but hope that the Dauphiné and Tour will be better.
Totally agree. I saw a list of the prize money totals about halfway through the race, and the Rockets were down near the bottom, but I never would have guessed that by how visible they were in the stages they went for. Likewise Movistar. Not a ton of success but not for lack of effort. I understand that some teams don’t expect to get much so they don’t “waste” their best riders on the Giro or Vuelta, but if you’re not ready to make a fist of it then I’d rather see the invitation go to a lower level team. Li Ning Star anyone?!? I can see Salby sneaking a couple of top tens in the sprints 😉