Where we’re at
After Thursday’s stage 18, he leads Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost) by 41 seconds, with Simon Yates (Visma–Lease a Bike) a further 10 seconds adrift in third. Israel–Premier Tech’s Derek Gee sits 1:57 down in fourth place. Each of these four riders could win this Giro because large gains and losses are definitely possible on the next two stages, each of which has at least 4,000 meters of climbing.
So, the Giro will be won by the best climber, as Grand Tours usually are. For me, the best climber in the race, by some distance, is Carapaz. Though he lost time to del Toro on Wednesday, that was because the Mexican rider is quicker on the flat, and the last part of the race was flat. The finishes on Friday and Saturday are not considered summit finishes, but the final climbs come close enough to the finish lines that they may as well be. And they are hard enough to really shake things up again.
On Friday’s stage 19, the final climb is easy enough, 9.5km @ 4.7%, and the finish line comes 5km after its summit, most of which is descent, but it is preceded by three tough Category 1 climbs, the last of which, the Col du Joux (15.3km @ 6.9%) comes immediately before it. On Saturday’s stage, the finish line comes just a stone’s throw from the summit of the final climb, a Category 3 to Sestriere (16.3km @ 3.8%). But that ascent is preceded by the HC (Beyond Category) Colle delle Finestre (18.4km @ 9.2%!), where the race may well be decided.
Who will win
But whoever comes over the Finestre climb first better have a sizable lead on del Toro, because he is fast and has shown that he can climb modest mountains. That means that, to defeat del Toro, Carapaz (or Yates or Gee) will have to begin building that lead on Friday, on the Col du Joux or even as early as the Category 1 climb before it, the Colle di San Pánthaleone (16.5km @ 7.2%).
That’s a lot of numbers to throw out, but this race will be decided by those numbers because, from what I’ve seen, the now 32-year-old Carapaz (birthday on Thursday) is best on the long, steep climbs, where he can exploit his explosiveness and his stamina. He will certainly burst into the lead on one or two of the above-mentioned climbs, with (probably) Yates, Gee and maybe del Toro in pursuit. Yates and Gee will then try to climb at their own pace, to try and catch Carapaz in the hope that he will tire.
It’s unclear if del Toro will be able to follow them. He wasn’t able to follow them on Tuesday’s final climb, but one theory put forward suggests that he never rides well on the race after a rest day. That’s a new one for me. In any case, based on available data, visual plus history, Carapaz should win the race. But the Giro is always unpredictable (unless Pogačar rides in it), and this edition has been insane.
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If it wasn’t for bad luck they wouldn’t have any luck at all
The big losers – or, more accurately, hard-luck victims – of this race were the two pre-race favourites, Primož Roglič (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates–XRG). Neither of them is still in the race. Roglič abandoned on Tuesday, after crashing for the fourth time in the race, and Ayuso dropped out on Thursday, finally succumbing to the knee injury he suffered on stage 9.
Roglič’s story is straightforward and familiar, for he has a history of falling off his bike in a Grand Tour. He will presumably use the extra days of rest to recover and prepare for the Tour de France, the race he (still) really wants to win. He is 35 years old, so this may be his best chance. I wish him luck, because he deserves one final triumph. But can he really beat Pogačar and Vingegaard? We’ll see.
Ayuso’s tale is more complex, for it is tied up with the question of who was UAE’s real leader, which was first asked after stage 9, in which he injured his knee and del Toro raced into the race leader’s maglia rosa. The team’s indecision on that score hurt both riders, until Tuesday when UAE staff members announced at a press conference (which Ayuso refused to attend) that del Toro was the leader.
Since then, the Spaniard has been a mere shadow of himself and actually wound up riding in a grupetto (a group of riders dropped by the peloton) for the first time. Interviewed by TNT Sports before Thursday’s stage, he appeared with a badly swollen eye. “A bee went under my helmet,” he explained. “I can’t see out of my right eye.”
He said doctors had advised against his continuing in the race, but he said he wanted to show that he was always a good team member. Of riding in a grupetto for the first time, he said, “I’m always at the front fighting for the win. It was pure misery in the back.” And then he summed up his experience in the race: “Everything seems going against me.”
Roglič could say the same. His wife, Lora Roglic Klinc, told the Slovenian news outlet Siol that thieves had broken into the family’s camper during the stage 10 ITT. “They smashed a window and stole a laptop that had been hidden under the bed, a mobile phone that Primoz had brought me from the Tokyo Olympic Games, some cash, and two rings,” she said.
So in the future, if you think you’re having a bad day, reflect on Roglič and Ayuso in the Giro and remember that it can always be worse.
Emotional Red Bull
Nico Denz (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) won Thursday’s stage 18 with a 17km solo breakaway from an 11-rider group that had broken away from a 35-rider breakaway group, on a day on which most of the peloton rested ahead of the two testing mountain stages that will decide the race. That was Red Bull’s first road victory since March and a nice consolation for the hard luck that struck Roglič.
Denz won the third Giro stage of his career and said after the race that “this is probably the most emotional one after losing Jai [Hindley] early on and then Primož.” Hindley crashed out of the race on stage 1. “We invested a lot and everybody in the whole team – not only the riders but the staff – had this one big goal of winning the Giro d’Italia with Primož Roglič.
“We were on altitude for two months, I’m now three months gone from home – didn’t see my wife or my children – and in the end, if you lose a leader like Primož, you also lose a dream. It feels like all this hard work is for nothing. Luckily we turned around and could motivate ourselves, with Giulio [Pellizzari] doing a fantastic job in the GC and now winning here today for me – on Father’s Day, by the way – it’s pretty special.” He then greeted his father in German.
In other news, four-stage winner Mads Pedersen has sewn up the points classification competition with three days to go. All he has to do is stay on his bike and he will take the maglia ciclamino (purple jersey) on Sunday. The same is true of the indefatigable Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) and the King of the Mountains competition. He has a lead of 230 points over his teammate Christian Scaroni. It’s probably still mathematically possible for someone to overtake him with all those mountains left to climb, but it is physically impossible that one rider reaches all those summits first – and it certainly won’t be Scaroni.
