L’Aquila—Foligno, 139km
I did not think the short 140km Stage 10 containing only one Category4 climb would be hard enough…but the Bora-Hansgrohe Band of Brothers did.
I had questioned the reason for this stage’s existence, why end the first week on the second Monday with a short transition sprinters’ stage after such a Sunday Showcase GC shootout in the Apennines? Perhaps there were logistical reasons to it, but this is what the Giro organizers opted for. Yes, the already abnormal 9-day first week of a Grand Tour was even longer at this year’s Giro, a 10-day week—only in early May, early July, and late August are such calendars possible. Perhaps that was what made the difference today, 9 straight days of full gas racing in the legs without any rest. Perhaps if this stage was the first back after the Rest Day, the sprinters’ legs would have just a tiny bit fresher for this deceptively tricky stage. But that was not the case. Bora-Hansgrohe did not allow this Giro to leisurely transition into this Rest Day, they blasted into it like charging bulls.
We have seen them try it over half-a-dozen times before in the past 12-months, but alas! in none has their Rockstar ever finish off the job at the end: mechanicals and perfectly-timed escaping-opportunists have kept foiling the end of their days. Time after time, this Bora Band of Brothers have shouldered the burden to smash the peloton to bits early on in the stage on crosswinds or a hard climb mid-race to drop all the pure sprinters, then they have sustained a relentless pace to the line so that none could rejoin and their Rockstar Peter Sagan could finish off the day. After trying so many times without ever turning up a Sagan “W” in this scenario, I truly thought they would take it easy this day. Ah! But Peter Sagan and his Band of Brothers apparently did not at all think this way. Truly they thought: “The Rest Day is but tomorrow, today we saddle up once more. Today we decimate the sprinters and finish well ahead of the fastest predicted schedules as we have over a handful of times before. It is another opportunity, we have no reason not to try. We are due for this brave strategy to succeed.”
Because of the Stage 3 antics with a certain Intermarche upstart, Taco Van Der Hoorn, the Band of Brothers knew to keep the breakaway on an extremely short leash all day—especially since the stage itself was relatively short. The focal point of the day would be that Category4 climb that crested with 40km to go until the finish. Ah! But even on the uncategorized rise before it, the Band of Brothers went right to work on shelling out the sprinters. Alas! By this point, we are almost numb to watching such feats, our attention was only captured this day because none thought this profile was tough enough. Yet there was Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) going out the back on that uncategorized climb, because Bora’s pace was too ferocious. Within a few kilometers, on the Category4 climb not only did they shell out Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix), but they caught the breakaway as well. And in the final 1500m of that Categorized climb, they caught out a last big fish as well: the European Champion Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka Assos). For the next 10km of descent and then flat, Nizzolo desperately chased with his final Qhubeka teammate Victor Campenaerts. But not even a tag-team time trial with the Hour Record Holder was enough to get them within a fool’s hope of returning to the peloton. When they were soon running on fumes, the two sat up and patted each other on the back knowing their Rest Day had started sooner than they wanted. The Bora Band of Brothers were relentless this day. This day they had some help from Israel Start-Up Nation looking after their sprinter Davide Cimolai who has already twice been second on the tougher sprint stages. But Bora has also learned from their mistakes of previous unsuccessful attempts. Always they have been good at shattering the peloton and dropping all but the best climbing sprinters, but today after the climb they had more focus to keep sustaining the driving pace. Not only to not allow the likes of chasing-Nizzolos to come back, but also to discourage late opportunists attacks from those who still had the legs, having sat-in well all day.
The only ones who even managed to get in front of that Band of Brothers train were, for a brief couple of kilometers only, the Wolfpack and the Grenadiers. 18km from the finish was a Sprint Point contain 3, 2, and 1 General Classification (GC) Bonus Seconds for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd across the line. With no breakaway of non-GC threats up the road to mop up these seconds, Deceuninck-Quickstep’s Remco Evenepoel—wearing the White Jersey of Best Young Rider and lying second Overall on GC—saw an opportunity to shrink his 15-second deficit to Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) who was wearing the Pink Jersey as the leader of the Giro d’Italia. Perhaps, the new fans would wonder: “How significant are three measly seconds in the grand scheme of things? Is this really worth the effort?” There are two answers to these questions. In the past Grand Tours have been decided by less than 10 seconds after over 3,000km of racing—so yes, every second counts. Additionally, another reason has already been stated: the Rest Day is but tomorrow…today, we race! It was a shockingly intense GC intermediate sprint, it was not only Remco trying to take the full 3-seconds, Bernal was interested to! There was Filippo “Top” Ganna, the massive F-16, leading out lanky Egan Bernal in the Pink Jersey for an intermediate sprint with compact Remco Evenepoel scrambling to stay in their perfect tailwind draft. All of this must have been taking place at extremely high speeds, for the pace was already up thanks to Bora before this lead-out even began. But there was the young Belgian phenom, Remco Evenepoel nestled in the perfect draft amongst a swarm of Grenadiers—yes, Gianni Moscon and Jhonaton Narvaez were there in support of Bernal as well. In such a moment, from the bird’s-eye view these men did not look like fast moving cyclists, but fighter-jets dogfighting for air superiority. Around Bernal and the leading-out Ganna came Remco in his final sprint, he looked great and Egan in Pink had not the speed to match him. Since clearly Egan could not beat Remco to the intermediate line in this sprint, Narvaez the Grenadier jumped into the fray. Narvaez proved the fastest of this group, he came around Remco to take the full 3 seconds so that Remco would not, because Egan could not. Remco took the 2 seconds for 2nd, and Bernal just nabbed the 1 second for 3rd. Thus thanks to the teamwork of Narvaez, Remco only cut 1 second—instead of 2 seconds—into Bernal’s GC advantage. Thus they top GC men would end the day now 14 seconds apart. But this thrilling intermediate sprint was only the appetizer for the finale.
The rest of the run-in was uneventful. Groenewegen, Merlier, and Nizzolo were already dropped—and Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) had already abandoned the Giro two stages ago. The chief competition for the Band of Brothers’ Peter Sagan would be Cofidis’ Elia Viviani, UAE’s Fernando Gaviria, and Israel Start-Up Nation’s Davide Cimolai. The run-in was once again technical. There were so many turns in this Foligno town-center finish, the line could not finally be seen until 150m to go. Bora led the peloton into this finish as they had for the whole last half of the stage. They were in good position when the road shrunk twice in the final kilometers to only one lane as it rounded a roundabout. They were the ones leading on the wide straightaways as well. They led into the looping three-part left-handed turns at 1km to go with two Brothers still ahead of leader Sagan—yes, they had perfect military execution this day. They had the peloton strung out in one long line through the narrow pinch-point, only a dozen men were even left in contention for the win with 500m to go. Finally at 400m, Cofidis got a lead out man to the front with great struggle, and at 350m UAE launched a satellite rider in a very long sprint as a foil—whoever took it upon themselves to chase this UAE rider down, Gaviria would come around in the finale. But the brave Rockstar Peter Sagan was the one onto it who would not let him go, with UAE’s main option Gaviria on his wheel. With 200m to go the road was curving into the finish, all were tilled over sideways at a forty-five-degree angle. Sagan was even with the UAE lead-out who was fading. But Sagan was only accelerating. To say Sagan careened around that final turn like a cannonball does not do it justice. Even on the most sweeping of descents, I have not seen cyclists fly ‘round a bend with more elegant and powerful speed. There is no other way to put it than he looked like a great archetypal cyclist swooshing around the bend to the far outside of the road sprinting for the finish. Yes, it was one of the most aesthetically beautiful sprints I have ever seen in all my days—to masterfully glide from the inside apex of the bend to the far outside not only conserving every ounce of speed, but increasing it. And in that last 150m of straight none could come around him. Gaviria did his best, but Sagan’s positioning and speed was too perfect to be beaten today.
And thus the Band of Brothers can now rest easy on the Rest Day, now that they have finally brought home the bacon on one of their all-out sprint stage assaults. To think I had wished for the Rest Day to be this Monday. Instead I was treated to a performance that made all of our days. Peter Sagan is the President of the Makes-Our-Day Club, and this victory was particularly sweet because it was proper climax of all the Bora peloton-shredding hard-work. How sweet it is for them, the rest of the peloton, and those covering the race that now the Rest Day is come.
Cycling Odysseys 