A summit finish? Yes but of sorts as it’s only steep in the final three kilometres.
Non fermo fino a Fermo: a non-stop stage that looked the part from start to finish, all at 45km/h. After a flurry of attacks, Filippo Ganna and Alberto Bettiol got away together but they were too strong, it was impossible for others too bridge across and eventually the pair folded. More moves came and went until with 76km to go, on wet roads, UAE’s Mikkel Bjerg went clear and seconds later his team mate Jhonatan Narvaez went across to his colleague, and Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X just made it across.
The trio combined well, with a classic stand-off behind. Moves from the likes of Garofoli and Romo to get across were doomed as the lead three were too far clear. In sporting terms this sucked the suspense out of the day, it would have been exciting to see more riders joining them and the the script changing. But Bjerg was working hard to avoid just this.
It was hard to see how Leknessund could win from here, grind down the others? With 10km to go as they climbed to Capodarco Narvaez attacked and this shed Bjerg. Leknessund got back on terms, but only just and another move by Narvaez shook of the Leknessund. Narvaez was only a few metres ahead at times but measured in time on the 20% slopes he had a sufficient margin to keep the Norwegian champ away and take a second stage win.
The Route: 184km with 2,400m of vertical gain. It’s across the pianura bolognese, the flat home roads of the Bardiani team. The climb after 110km lifts the route over from one valley to the next but is on a regular road. Once back in the next valley it’s inland to Sila.
Out of Sila and the road starts climbing and into Gaggio Montano, home of several coffee machine factories including Gaggia and also another company founded by two men called Sergio and Arthur and they created SA and company or SAeCo, which later sponsored a cycling team, more of which below. It’s gentle for the most part on a wide road but with one steep ramp coming into the town. From there there’s 20km and the first 10km are gentle and with some descents.
The Finish: the 28km climb is really all about the final three kilometres and even these don’t have many surprises, the road drags up through woodland with a 10% slope to the line to make the final selection.
The Contenders: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) is the obvious pick, he can bid his time until the final 3km before using the 10% slope to jump away. But will his team ride lock down the race? Unlikely, so the breakaway has a good chance.
Picks for the breakaway are wide open because if this is a summit finish, a non-climber can still attack within 10km and use their power to take a gap which they can defend at the end. Not that 80kg riders like Max Walscheid, Jonas Rutsch or Tord Gudmestad stand a chase, but it’s open to plenty.
Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) is suited to the stage and his team needs a result, he had pink but lost it for a day and if the team has pretensions to be among the best the need to score soon.
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Ciccone, Christen |
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Vingegaard, Rubio, Van Eetvelt |
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Vergalito, Sobrero, Pinarello, Poels, Rafferty, Lopez² |
Weather: a mix of sunshine and clouds, 21°C during the stage but the more into the mountains the cloudier it gets, and a chilly 6°C at the finish.
TV: KM0 is at 12.50pm and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Tune in at 4.00pm for the final climb but don’t expect fireworks on this long, gradual climb.
Postcard from the Corno alle Scale
The Giro last finished here in 2004 and what an edition that was. This was the Giro post-Pantani after he’d died in February that year. Il Pirata remains a constant presence at the race, just yesterday one branch of his still existant fan club was at the stage finish.
The 2004 Giro became a duel between Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego, team mates at Saeco. Simoni was 32 years old and had won the Giro in 2001 and 2003 and was known for his straight talking. He would comment on rivals in a way that nobody does today and his quotes often formed headlines by themselves. Cunego was a second year pro with cherubic cheeks and tufts of blond hair. You can begin to spot opposing caricatures.
“Let’s not forget that I am the captain of Saeco” said Simoni on the eve of the Giro after Cunego won the Giro del Trentino (the Tour of the Alps today) ahead of him, and on Simoni’s home roads. Simoni was even talking about winning the Giro as a springpad to a Tour de France victory that year and had spent the winter taunting Lance Armstrong, trying to provoke the American to do the Giro as well. We don’t need too much hindsight to spot the hubris here.
Cunego won Stage 2, taking a 40-rider sprint. The next day the race finished at the Corno alle Scale and Simoni won solo ahead of Cunego, with Simoni taking the race lead too. But come Stage 7 and Cunego won and with the time bonus took the maglia rosa. The two battled each other, sometimes via the pedals, sometimes via the press. Simoni would remark he could still win the Giro even if he did not attack Cunego, as his younger team mate would melt under pressure. But Cunego would finish the race with four stage wins and with two minutes on Serhiy Gonchar, with Simoni third by a few seconds.
These duels and beefs don’t exist in cycling any more. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard aren’t friends but neither gives quotes designed to wind up their rival. If you can find a verbal gap between Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari it might be over their preferred pasta shapes. The hypothesis here is that there are two reasons. First, newspapers no longer mediate these rivalries, instead social media does and for all the potential for online antagonism, riders follow each other and can message each other, rather than polemiche and spiced-up quotes pitched in opposition, which see one rider read a quote and then react. So now things can be smoothed over almost in real time. Second, a lot of this smoothing is achieved by teams who go a long way to policing the communication of their athletes, they don’t want any negative output including criticism of rivals. What gets said inside the team bus is drilled into riders to stay there… unless it happens outside between Gianmarco Garofoli and Filippo Zana.
When Simoni won here at the Corno alle Scale he declared “Someday soon I’ll teach him [Cunego] all about how to win a grand tour“. It was a line that was more defensive rather than an invitation to share tips and lives on because of its sizzling invective. All eyes on Hindley and Pellizzari but the quotes won’t be so spicy.
A few guys thinking of the rest day on Monday.
30 guys otherwise going up the road probably and the rest following at a distance that encourages a breakaway win.
Bahrain have the pink jersey and Visma won’t mind them keeping it for a couple more days.
Excellent stage recap and postcard, as ever. I don’t want to imagine a world without this cycling blog in it. W IL GIRO E W INRNG.
I for one am grateful to see the days of bitter invective between rivals long gone. Not certain if this is a minority viewpoint, but I MUCH prefer the civility and sportsmanship of the current era to what came before. MvDP rushing over to congratulate WvA after Wout’s Paris-Roubaix win, for example, is precisely what I want to see. I realise that pro athletes are fiercely competitive and cut from a different cloth than us ordinary types, but give me courtesy over hostility any day. The world needs more of the former and less of the latter.