Il Giro says goodbye to Hungary with a 220-kilometre stage of boredom, won, at the last, by riders displaying both courage and imagination. Davide Formolo celebrates his first pink jersey. The “Grinder of Valpolicella” proving, like the famous Veronese wine, Amarone maturing in his cellar, to be aging better and better. Everyone is happy with the result, including Nibali, who finds a handful of his rivals further back than they were yesterday. As that joker Bruseghin always quips: “A valley stage is a Comanche stage”.
The ambush, in fact, takes shape at lunchtime, in a village whose name has been so denuded of vowels that it could be confused for a tax code. It’s clear that following a night on the tiles, our heroes are looking a little worse for wear, having paid the price of the evening’s entertainment - a sort of a tribute, perhaps, to Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, replete with beer-drinking and sausage-scoffing challenges. Only the classic punch up at the end was missing - but the sprinters had already been there and done that in Györ. The answer to the question: will Sagan continue, or return home, is the sight of him sporting a bandaged shoulder, mounting his bike. As always the sledgehammer Slav despises the blame game. Dislocation yes, complaining, never! As the hard rules of the sprinters dictate, accounts are always to be settled in body-slams in the boulevards, not in the sports pages of the newspapers.
Ready, steady, go! And they are off with the squaddies launching attack and counter attack until, just at the start of the downhill, while gliding through fields of sweet corn and wild plum towards Lake Balaton, the right mix of riders manage their escape. The most valued of the group are Hansen and Formolo, but the presence of cunning foxes, like Gasparotto, Kangert, Wellens and Visconti, are the proof that this break has legs. The blue waters of the lake are little in evidence, but in placing the half way mark below the stunning Tihany Monastery, a picture postcard advertisement of the Balaton is ensured, just the same.
With 90 km, remaining the advantage over the chasing pack exceeds 4 minutes. The ‘virtual’ pink jersey remaining in the white, red and green hues of the Italian flag - but with horizontal stripes. The Hungarian rider of a Polish team, Attila Valter, who knows these roads better than his own hands, at the start said: “the Balaton can be kind or grumpy – it all depends on which way the wind is blowing.” The peloton is allowing the pot to simmer and Team Trek Segafredo is happy enough with the status quo as it’s keeping its pink jersey in contact with the front positions. As things are it seems that it’s up to Viviani’s team to make the running and reel in the break.
Right on cue the feared crosswinds appear, battering the flanks of the peloton and like the puncture, suffered at the same moment by the young cannibal Evenepoel, a reminder to anyone in danger of dozing off, that a race is always a race. And for Deceuninck to get his champion back into contention will now be a hard ask indeed. Many had not even crested the hill before the crash happens with Van Garderen bumping into Jesus Herrada and Victor Campenaerts. The fall results in a gigantic entanglement of frames and bodies, just like yesterday at Györ. Unfortunately, the Ineos locomotive had chosen that very moment to position itself behind Van Garderen, and Froome is amongst its many derailed wagons. Carapaz gets off scot-free and Zakarin and Simon Yates, though involved, are unhurt. In the agony of road burns and to the sound of creaking joints almost all managed to rise, but not Amador. With a resigned expression on his face and a bloody gash on his calf muscle, he waits for the paramedics, the air turning red with oaths. The breakaways are now just a dot on the horizon as Nibali and Dum are keeping their team mates in check as attacking now would be to take advantage of the misfortune of others. The Cofidis and Bora teams have no such qualms and organise themselves in fan formation and begin pulling hard, aiming at catching the breakaways. The rear-guard is also getting itself back together - Froom relying on the red-hot pistons of Dennis and Ganna and the collaboration of other team leaders - including the now reabsorbed Evenpoel squad. At the banner marking just 20 kilometre to go, the distance between the chasers and the chased is oscillating at around a minute but the breakaway group, thanks, either to exhaustion, or team orders, is losing riders and seconds. The stage, no longer a country ramble – it’ a serious matter now.
First Valter, then Visconti and Gasparotto, risk solo breaks but it’s Hansen’s effort which eventually proves successful but with Formolo and his team companion, Wellens, on his tail. The lake lies behind them, the wind now favourably pushing the threesome towards the Hapsburg buildings of Nagykanizsa. The other escapees are sucked up by the trains of Vivani and Ackermann but too late to catch the leaders. Wellens makes an early break trying to avoid the sprint finish. Formolo can’t resist the temptation to follow but, in so doing, provides the perfect launch pad for the devilish Adam Hansen who is once again victorious in the Giro, having won the Pescara stage back in 2013. For Formolo, the guy from Verona, it’s a placing which gives promise of winning the Giro, thanks to the 27-second advantage gained over the Nibali group. In recompense, the Shark can, at least, look forward tonight to uncorking a bottle of Zibibbo (the local wine) in his native Sicily. The bill to be paid at the finishing line by the group of the fallen, including Froome, Zakarin and Yates, amounts to 21 seconds. The stage victory celebrations lasts less than the time it takes to say a prayer. The riders are already packed onto the airport coach, the engines of the charter plane for Palermo are already running, and everyone is just waiting for the Giro d’Italia’s wooden spoon, which has passed from the greenhorn shoulders of Maestri to the more expert ones of his teammate, Matteo Pelucchi. Even there, at the back, things are getting serious.
This jersey will be signed by the stage winner and auctioned for charity at the end of the Senzagiro. Design curated by Fergus Niland, Creative Director of Santini Cycling Wear, based on a design by the illustrator Francesco Poroli.
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