The Giro route book is called Garibaldi, like Pablo Iglesias’s tavern in Lavapiés, because the Italian revolutionary was, in addition to many other things, an unrepentant traveler and the publication published each year by the pink race is nothing more than a compendium of current routes and past exploits; data, numbers, cities and myths of the bicycle, like Eddy Merckx, who, in 1968, in his first time in the Giro, debuted his pink jersey in Novara. He won the second day, which ended there, and the next day he came out with the leader’s tunic, which he gave up two days later to recover it the last week, in the Tres Cimas del Lavaredo and win in his first participation.
Tadej Pogacar is two years older than Merckx when he achieved his feat, but on the third day of the Giro he also came out dressed in pink in Novara, in a stage planned for finishers, or escape hunters, but perhaps because it started with a high finish. The second day tempered the impulses of the brave, they did not dare to wear down the forces already worn out on Sunday.
The teams of the main players did not consent, and so it is very difficult. Only 78 kilometers away, very far from the finish line, there were skirmishes that broke the peloton’s nap, to fight for the points awarded by the fuchsia jersey of regularity, ciclamino in the language of the Giro with which the Garibaldi is written, and It caused a slight cut, which lasted a minute, but was quickly repaired by the desire of those behind and the reluctance of those in front.
Pogacar, dressed in pink, always circulated at the top of the group, as befits his stripes, surrounded by his body guard, and how comfortable it is to travel in a platoon that was gaining speed as the distance to the finish line decreased. The kilometers passed monotonously, through the green landscapes of Piedmont, dotted here and there by towers and castles of warrior Italy when it was not the country that Garibaldi, among others, helped to unify, but a succession of states in a permanent state of boiling. Like Pogacar, incapable of sitting still, and who, as they said about Merckx, activates when he sees any banner in the background, be it a flying goal – an expression out of use in modern times of cycling –, the mountain prize, the goal, or the town festivals during which the race takes place.
He adds seasoning to a dull stage, first in the Cherasco special sprint, where he launches himself to compete for the three-second bonus, perhaps just to undermine the morale of the pretenders to his throne. He was second, filed two. It was the appetizer, the main course remained in Fossano, the city of 25,000 inhabitants and thirteen churches, installed on a plateau, with the streets laid out in a grid, and from which, on clear days, you can see the snowy peaks of the Swiss Alps.
You go up a hill to the town for a kilometer and a half, with a sharp curve in the middle. The finishers struggle on a terrain that is not too hard for their legs, and not too long for surprises, but it turns out that the Danish Mikkel Honoré can’t think of anything other than to sting Pogacar, who doesn’t need more. You have to feel the pinch to launch yourself towards the goal. There are three kilometers left and only the instigator and the always attentive Geraint Thomas can follow him, while confusion spreads among the fast boys who were waiting for their moment. Once again, Pogacar causes chaos. There are two kilometers left, Honoré gives up exhausted and the first two in the general classification take over to reach the finish line and cause the surprise, if that word can ever be used with Pogacar.
The hunt from behind takes on overtones of debauchery; In the platoon everyone makes war on their own. For a while, it seems that Pogacar and Thomas’ express adventure is going to end well, but finally they organize themselves behind, and 300 meters away, the two strongest men of the Giro give up, swallowed up by the voracity of the finishers. At the finish line the Belgian Tim Merlier wins, but the MVP is once again Pogacar, who else? “I thought we couldn’t catch up to them,” says the winner of the leader. Everyone doubts when the phenomenon decides to act like Eddy Merckx.
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