Children are like parents but more children. These are things of the century, or of generation Z, which dominates the narrative of cycling. They are tender, dreamy youngsters, like Georg Steinhauser, son of Tobias, Jan Ullrich’s step-niece, who won on Wednesday in the mountains, or, with his point of childish rage, like Tim Merlier, who would be Franck Vandenbroucke’s son-in-law, if the cursed poet, and the evil of self-destruction beaten generation, of Belgian cycling, he would not have died, so young, and he would be 49 years old, and he could have a pint of Menabrea in a bar in Padua after his victory in the volata in the Venetian city of Giotto, and perhaps toast with a the haters. A sprint proletarian, Merlier has grown up in Belgian kermesse teams until, as a veteran, he earned the lead in the finishes of Soudal, but, despite his speed and his victories, many fans still dispute his value. He is not a pureblood, he is not of the great caste. He has hardly been illustrated in the classics or on important stages. A stage of the ’21 Tour and a Belgian champion jersey, and little else. When at the end of the flattest stage – rain in the Dolomites and downhill towards the Veneto through Belluno, sun on the prosecco hills of Valdobbiadene, the plains of the Piave and Brenta in Treviso, and in its meanders the palaces of Alvise Pisani with frescoes by Tiepolo and the nobles of Venice who fled in summer from the diseases born from the pestiferous canals -, Merlier beats the gifted Jonny Milan by a tubular in Padua, in the meadow of his San Antonio, the most complicated volata of the entire Giro —very wide avenues at 70 per hour, and two 90 degree curves, elbow to left, elbow to right—, the official speaker of the race reminds the public that it is his second victory in this Giro and then addresses the Belgian, directly . “It’s the first time he’s won two stages on a grand tour, and he’s never won such a late sprint, stage 18. Is this a step forward in his career?” he asks. And Merlier, half smiling, responds dryly: “This is going to disappoint the haters.”
The second for Merlier, the fourth for Milan and hopes to tie at three in Rome, on Sunday, the last day. The maglia cyclamen does not take it away from the Friulian giant, which only has loversand he has it well under control.
It is the end of a stage of cooks, of a flight of five from kilometer 16 under the deluge – Maestri, Pietrobon, Honoré, Affini, Fiorelli – to whom the peloton, under the orders of Lidl of Milan, and Tadej Pogacar totally invisible for a day, tie it short and let it cook in its juice, like someone who confits an artichoke or a pork rib for hours and hours (a bain-marie is what the Italians, who understand a lot about cooking pasta, summarize), with less than a minute of advantage kilometers and kilometers flat and yawning. They are not very bothered by the Malay drop tactic, they suck camera and one of them, Pietrobon, from Polti, adds 152 kilometers to the 474 that the Giro, leader of the classification, has been in flight. Three kilometers from the meadow, when those from the general retreat from the head of the platoon, Julian Alaphilippe accelerates the Soudal troops. Train formation begins. Fast and methodical, all the teams with sprinters are organized, superb, proud of their ability, but they go so fast on the Venetian roads that they derail in the two curves of the last kilometer. The train drivers, unaware that the cars have been uncoupled, turn around in confusion on the last stretch, and stop, and Jonny Milan, who is in 20th place, and locked in, alarmed, begins to sprint in desperation, and, in progression, so much inertia, he reaches tremendous speed, scares, and throws his bike over the line. But he doesn’t arrive. Merlier, who has seen him start, jumps first. “When I go full speed with my Specialized SL8, which is the fastest car on the market, and my sprintsuit from Castelli, I know that no one can beat me,” says Merlier, advertising his bike and his clothes, his second skin, so thin, so close to the epidermis. “Milan is a very strong sprinter, very similar to me, he likes to progress from afar, and when I saw him coming from my left I already jumped, I knew I had to make a good jump.”
Enough to win by a few centimeters and be aware of it, and raise your arm, and disappoint Milan, even if you are not one of the haters. “What a disaster to be second after everything my Lidl has worked for,” laments the Italian. Being second is never pretty, and it was my fault that I got lost in the corners. It was the most chaotic sprint of my career. Life is so”.
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