This was the Giro di Ripartenza (“the Giro of Restart”) after the Coronavirus pandemic that hit Italy so particularly hard in its most early days last Spring. Yes, after such dark days this Giro had only a little less anticipation than the Giro of Rebirth in 1946 when Italy emerged from the darkness of the Second World War.
This was the Giro of attrition as well, O surely it was. Superman Lopez (Astana) crashed out of the race in the opening Palermo Time Trial. Ineos team leader Geraint Thomas abandoned the race on Stage 3 with a fractured pelvis, but not before riding to the top of Mt. Etna only 10 minutes behind the leaders. We saw Simon Yates himself and three of his Mitchelton-Scott teammates tested positive for COVID-19 forcing the whole team to withdraw from the race around the first Rest Day. Steven Kruijswijk and his Jumbo-Visma team withdrew for similar reasons. In such an October slot, the rains were ferocious and treacherous as well, surely there were more days with coats on than not. With positive tests and the Winter storms coming early in the Alps and Dolomites, it was questioned if the race would actually make it all the way to Milan. And things came to a boil on Stage 19 when the riders refused to ride the full massive 258 km flat stage in the sopping wet and rain.
This was the Giro where the elders showed their age. Where have you gone, Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe)? Surely this race was yours for the taking, but instead of handing you a jersey or a trophy or a bottle of champagne you force us to give you walking canes made of beech or chestnut or ash. And our beloved Shark of Messina, Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), we shed a tear for you most of all, here in your twilight. Surely, the cows have now come home for dinner, surely your sunset is near; you can no longer play these young men’s games even on your home roads. Italian compatriot Diego Ulissi (UAE) proved he is not yet a diminished force with his two stage wins, even more so Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) with his four fabulous sprint victories. On the General Classification (GC) Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) fought bravely. Alex Dowsett (Israel Start-Up Nation), Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-McLaren), and Josef Cerny (CCC) each took brilliant stage wins, but they were all outdone by the mighty Rockstar Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) who took one of his most legendary victories when he held off the charging GC favorites on Stage 10, “the Stage of Walls.” But beyond the successes mentioned above, this was a young man’s race and many elder statesmen now see the writing on the wall if they have not already just been retired.
This was the Giro where youngsters earned their stripes and made their names. Jonathan Caicedo and Ruben Guerreiro in their eye-sore limited-edition EF-Palace jerseys each took stages. Ben O’Connor’s stage win helped his NTT team’s fight for survival and scramble to find new sponsorship before the team goes under at the end of the season. Jhonatan Narvaez’s stage win will almost be forgotten amidst all the success of the Ineos Grenadiers team despite former Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas’ early abandonment. You have heard of the movie Top Gun, but after this Giro surely you have now heard of “Top Ganna.” Filippo Ganna wore the maglia rosa, the Pink Jersey, and won four stages for his Ineos team in his debut Grand Tour: he manhandled all three time trials while wearing his World Champion’s Rainbow Jersey, and unexpectedly took a thrilling mountain stage victory as well. Then there was the Portuguese rider of Deceuninck-Quickstep, Joao Almeda who donned the Pink Jersey for over a fortnight in what was also his debut Grand Tour. He was not a rookie, but a warrior: he fought up Mt. Etna, survived the Stage of Walls, hung on to a slender lead up Piancavallo. But like teammate Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quickstep) in the 2019 Tour, in Hector-ian fashion he was vanquished and it took place on the mighty Stelvio, Italy’s most hallowed climb. All of these riders have not even turned 26 years-old, and I have yet to mention the two sub-26ers that went one-two on the GC.
This was the Giro where Australian Jai Hindley (Sunweb) and Londoner Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) went into the final day 15.7 km time trial on the same time, after 3,345.2 km only tenths of a second separated the top two riders on General Classification…two riders whose odds of winning the Giro at the start in Palermo must have been well in the triple digits. On the Stelvio and Sestriere stages, Geoghegan Hart’s Ineos teammate Rohan Dennis ravaged all of the competition for Tao besides Jai Hindley. I know, I know, Dennis set the Hour Record in 2015, but I dare claim his super-domestiquing on these stages was his real “Finest Hour.” For Sunweb and Hindley, it was a tough call on the Stelvio and again on the triple ascents of Sestriere to let team leader Kelderman fend for himself, but no alternative was better. Surely Hindley needed to sit on the furious pace of the Ineos duo, Rohan Dennis and Tao Geoghegan Hart, or Sunweb would lose the Giro right there. With Kelderman—the nominal team leader—behind struggling to rejoin, Hindley would also enjoy an accuse to do none of the pacing duties with Geoghegan Hart. But at the end of both stages, when Dennis and Kelderman were basically out of the picture, in the final days of the Giro, Jai Hindley and Tao Geoghegan Hart proved even matches in the mountains and the final day time trial would have to decide the race between them. And in this final time trial Tao Geoghegan Hart decisively beat Jai Hindley by 39 seconds…to win the Giro d’Italia by 39 seconds. Surely, it will feel like a devastating lose for the young Hindley because who knows if such an opportunity at Grand Tour victory will ever come around for him again. But hopefully he will chin up quickly and realize he has accomplished quite a feat. He has catapulted himself into the top echelons of the sport and all that he has accomplished in this Giro is a great triumph in itself.
This was the Giro with the surprise winner of Tao Geoghegan Hart. Before this race, he was known only as one in a plethora of mighty Ineos climbing domestiques. Though the selection was played very close to the chest and this cannot be confirmed, Tao was probably the “first rider out” on Ineos’ Tour de France line-up one month before the start of this Giro. Can you imagine if Tao had been selected for the Tour? He surely would not have rode this Giro afterwards, thus he never would have won. What must have felt like a set back (that is not being selected for the Tour) was truly the greatest blessing in disguise Tao could ask for. The Tao Geoghegan Hart that won the Giro d’Italia today in Milan is not the same Tao Geoghegan Hart that started the Giro d’Italia in Palermo three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, he was Tao Geoghegan Hart whose best results were a couple of stage wins in the minor Tour of the Alps race. He had shown flashes of brilliance elsewhere though: it was off the back of his excellent work that Geraint Thomas dominated the 2018 Dauphine in his run-up to his 2018 Tour de France victory, and in last year’s Vuelta he was knocking on the door of a stage win that never materialized. It seemed an achievement and fulfillment of a long-time goal when he finally won his first Grand Tour stage at the Piancavallo summit one week ago, anything else achieved in the final week would simply be a bonus. And in classic Giro fashion, the last week was a mighty monster. All of the competition, save Hindley, wilted and Tao took full advantage. Surely we will remember this as the Corona Giro where the headliners were decimated by crashes and illness or simply proved their age, but that was out of Tao’s control and he made the most possible of this rare chance; with both his legs Tao rode to a victory he quite frankly was not on trajectory to ever achieve in his career. Now he is a Grand Tour winner, he has won the General Classification of the second most prestigious race in cycling, the Giro d’Italia—what an elite club he has just joined. Within his own Ineos team—one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport—his name shall now be grouped with Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, and Egan Bernal as a winner of a Grand Tour. Tao from what I gather is a student of the sport, he will know what illustrious company he is now numbered in. With this victory, Tao has potentially created new leadership opportunities for himself, but in an all-star team like Ineos Grenadiers this golden solo leadership opportunity at a Grand Tour—let alone being in a Grand Tour winning position—might not ever come up again which is what makes this victory so sweet. It was a pleasant surprise for us cycling viewers, but it is probably still literally unbelievable for Tao himself. Yes, Tao, your long-dismissed wildest childhood dream—that you never in a million years thought realistic—has all of a sudden actually come true, you have won the Giro d’Italia. Congratulations.
This was the Giro in all its classic glory. It was not pulled off “without a hitch,” surely there were hiccups and ugly moments along the way, but it was a classic Giro nonetheless. There were great stage finish sprints on both flat roads and steep ramps, there were uncomfortably long days in the saddle, there was bad weather, there were epic climbs, there was a harrowingly difficult final week, there were worthy winners, and there was Pink in every corner of Italy. It will not be forgotten this was the Corona Giro, but it will be as much remembered that this was a Giro where many of the great stars for the next decade made their name. The decade is only in its infancy, but this might go down as the strangest Grand Tour of the 2020s. Yes, this 2020 Giro will stand out when we look back on the records and history books in the decades and centuries to come. It will not be remembered as the most thrilling, nor the sexiest, nor the Giro we cherish most; but it will be a Giro we never forget, it will be a Giro that shall simultaneously make us scratch our heads and fondly smile—even chuckle—while reflecting on the unexpected and yet pleasantly heartwarming fairytales that transpired these past three weeks.
Cycling Odysseys 