Van Aert is back – Visma too?
That may not happen again soon, and the team has not had a bad year at all with now 16 victories. But van Aert, returning from a serious knee injury sustained in the Vuelta, has struggled to become the “real Wout.” To add to his problems, he fell ill a week before the start of the Giro and was still suffering the effects of the illness when the race started. So, after finishing second on stage 2 behind Mads Pedersen, he faded badly, misjudging a leadout for the team’s sprinter, Olav Kooij, and seemingly short on legs.
But he took a big victory on Sunday’s stage 9 of the race, after a crash on a white gravel sector slowed most of the peloton and left him in a six-rider lead group that the bunch never caught. He then beat the surprise race leader, Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates–XRG), in a sprint in Siena. Then, on Thursday’s stage 12, after teammate Edoardo Affini brought van Aert and Kooij in position at the head of the peloton, the 31-year-old Belgian rode an astonishing lead-out of some 700 meters to bring his sprinter in position, and Kooij did the rest, winning his second Giro stage and recording the fortieth professional victory of his career. Not bad at all for a 23-year-old.
“We were waiting for this one, or I was waiting,” he told TNT afterwards. “We grew into the race as a team with Simon [Yates] being in a good position, Wout taking that stage win… In the other two sprints, I didn’t go right, so I’m really happy that today we could do it.”
“You know the saying You win or you learn,” van Aert said. “And on the last few occasions, we didn’t win. But, of course, we learnt from it, and today we stayed more calm and that’s how Edo, Olav and I could use each other.”
As for Yates, who came to Visma at the beginning of the year and has had lacklustre performances, he has looked strong here and currently sits fifth, only 1:11 behind del Toro. If his form holds up, he could present his team with a Grand Tour podium finish, which would be a big confidence booster ahead of the Tour de France.
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Does Carapaz have a chance to win?
Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost) thrust himself into the conversation with an impressive win on Wednesday’s stage 11, though he took only seconds from the other GC contenders. He now sits in sixth place, 1:58 behind the race leader, 21-year-old Isaac del Toro.
That victory and the manner in which the 2019 Giro winner took it have inebriated commentators with visions of a major upset in the making. Carapaz is a terrific climber, and he usually improves as a Grand Tour approaches its final week. His problem is that this year’s course has only one more summit finish difficult enough to make up 2 minutes on rivals. In the other mountain stages, the finish line comes after a descent or a stretch of flat road, which are not his strengths.
The Ecuadorian’s other problem is that he simply isn’t as consistently good a rider as his rivals, which is why none of them tried to catch him on the way to his stage-11 win. Unless some riders ahead of him falter or crash out, I think the best placing Carapaz can hope for is a top 5 finish.
Pedersen is looking like the points classification winner
Lidl-Trek’s Mad Pedersen was the undoubted star of the Giro’s first week, with three stage victories and a solid grip on the maglia ciclamino (purple jersey) for the points classification leader. Though his win streak has ended and there were few stages suitable for sprinters until stage 12, the Dane has remained prominent in chasing down breakaways in the service of his teammates.
He finished fourth in stage 12, which put his points lead to 177 to 105 over Kooij, which is probably large enough for him to ease into the win in the competition. But Pedersen doesn’t feel secure yet, and perhaps rightly so. There are at least four, perhaps even five, stages left that could come down to a bunch sprint, and with Visma suddenly in form, he is getting antsy.
“It’s not secure yet,” he said in an interview. “There are still a few more sprint days with points on the line. Today [Kooij] gained 25 or 30 points. [The win] is not sure before we are in Rome.” Asked about the warm congratulations he gave to Kooij and van Aert, he said in an interview with Cycling Pro Net, “For me, it’s nice to see competitors winning also. Of course, I would love to win myself, but when it’s a final like this and it suits him perfect, and he’s also fighting to win… And they did a perfect job today, so it’s well deserved.”
You just have to love the guy.
