The Giro is starting to look like a question of dependency. Nothing happens without the permission of the leader, all movements depend on him, who with his permanent smile when he gets off the bike, and his stone face when he gets on, causes fear among his supposed contenders. The platoon of favorites? He is paralyzed waiting for what Pogacar decides, who, however, is not a tyrant in the style of Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who never existed, but a boy who wants to win everything and give nothing away. That’s all. As if it were simple.
With one kilometer to go, Tiberi jumps, with all his strength invested in the effort, he has been regulating his energy for a while after twelve kilometers of ascent and he feels that he has legs. And Tadej comes out after him, without getting up from the saddle, and cools his spirits. Then it’s Arensman who tries and the same thing happens. Like someone who washes, it doesn’t take Pogacar even two seconds to close the gap. It almost seems like he is whistling. Again Tiberi, again the leader’s response, softly, like that of a mother holding a baby who is taking his first steps and trying to move away from her lap. Geraint Thomas doesn’t even try, he knows what is going to happen, and he doesn’t want it to happen. He arrives from behind Rafal Majka, the friendly tyrant’s companion and stands in front of the group, 500 meters left. “It wasn’t the best climb for us, it wasn’t hard enough,” the efficient Polish gregarious later admits. “Two kilometers away I asked Tadej if he was accelerating so he could leave, and he told me no, at the finish line.”
That’s how it went. All the leader’s plans, once again in full pink, are fulfilled. 200 meters from the finish line in Prati di Tivo he got in front of him, accelerated with his usual brutality, and won his third stage in eight days; on the first mountain day, in the Abruzzo, in the shadow of Italy’s Gran Sasso, one day after his enormous effort in the time trial. Nobody recovers like him, everyone depends on Pogacar. Daniel Felipe Martínez and Ben O’Connor, second and third, can boast that they entered with the same time.
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