Featured image courtesy of Tim de Waele/Getty Images
Before any bike race, it’s a lottery to predict who will win. So before the 105th Giro d’Italia began in Hungary on its way to Verona after three weeks, there was a lot of chat about how unpredictable the race for pink was going to be. Looking back to as many November 2021 tweets and the replies we all sent, when the route for the 2022 edition came out, fans were rightly acknowledging the lack of time trialling kilometres,
We had a Giro d’Italia where nothing was certain and it has worked a treat.
By reducing all the focus on the time trials, the race organisers clearly gave hope to some GC contenders who may never get a better chance at winning a Grand Tour. A wide-open opportunity beckoned for some who’ve made GC top-ten’s, had previous stints in the pink jersey, as well as those who’ve won the race before. It comes as no surprise that the best climbers have flourished and for the latest champion of the maglia rosa, we’ve been treated to something historic.
Australian Jai Hindley becomes the first rider from his country to win the Giro d’Italia. Before this Grand Tour, the Aussies only had one three-week champion, a rider who until now was an isolated figure on the top step. It’s now an eternity since Cadel Evans triumphed at the 2011 Tour de France, but now Jai Hindley has taken a huge leap forward, a landmark moment for Australian cycling, the opportunity taken and as you’ll read below an act of redemption.
There are plenty of Australian professional cyclists. Over recent years the likes of Caleb Ewan, Rohan Dennis, Michael Matthews and Simon Gerrans have made their mark at the three Grand Tours. Go back further and you have numerous names who’ve taken stages at the Tour de France, most notably the 12 wins and three green jersey’s Robbie McEwen wrapped up between 1999 and 2007.
The women aren’t bad either. Grace Brown, Tiffany Cromwell, Rochelle Gilmore, Chloe Hosking and Amanda Spratt are all household names. Add into the mix one of the best Olympic medalists, and former arch nemesis of Victoria Pendleton on the track, Anna Meares, and you have quite a sizeable field of competitors from Down Under.
Track riders, sprinters, time trialists, puncheurs and loyal domestiques in the service of others, Australian riders have provided exceptional entertainment, but to win a Grand Tour overall, that hasn’t been a frequent thing to happen. At the Tour de France alone, Stuart O’Grady managed to complete 17 Tours and Phil Anderson rode 13 times, the first Aussie and first non-European to wear the yellow jersey in 1981.
It wasn’t until Cadel Evans came along in 2002, when exactly ten years ago he became the first Australian to wear Giro pink even if it was for one day alone. That was the first time Australia gave themselves something to shout about at a Grand Tour other than the Tour and in Evans he did go on to claim a first-ever Australian Grand Tour dressed in yellow.
Cadel Evans winning the Tour in 2011 was the moment when Australian Grand Tour ambitions took off but since then we haven’t seen a rider from Australia come close to taking another of the big three-week Grand Tours, cycling’s equivalent of the tennis Grand Slams.
A long decade since yellow victory for Cadel Evans, podiums at Grand Tours have still come about, even Evans himself remains the only Australian to have made the top three at the Giro, Tour and Vuelta. Just two years ago at the Tour, Richie Porte (now in retirement mode) made it onto a Grand Tour podium for the first time in his career, a long drought came to an end.
Beyond podium placings, it is now set in stone that Australian cycling has a new pink jersey to celebrate, secured and won without any real difficulty at all. A 26-year-old from Perth, riding for BORA-Hansgrohe, has now become only the second Aussie to claim general classification success at a Grand Tour.
As written above, nobody really knew who would win this Giro, so unpredictable that Jai Hindley didn’t really get a mention in the pre-race contender previews. Surprising? Hard to say, because it was only 19 months ago at a rescheduled Giro when Jai Hindley went into the final Milan time trial level on time with Tao Geoghegan Hart, only for Hindley to lose pink to Geoghegan Hart by 39 seconds.
Has Jai Hindley really been seen as a contender since? You might argue that the 2020 second place was a one-hit wonder and in 2021 he did actually struggle to find any kind of form. Yet for 2022 there were strong similarities to how close he came two years and making amends for the 105th Giro.
A stage win atop a mountain on Stage 9 to Blockhaus, a slow but progressive climb up the GC rankings, other contenders falling out of contention and a clear strength to put in attacks when needed, the one difference from 2020 compared to this year was the advantage Jai Hindley put into a faltering Richard Carapaz on Stage 20. The pink jersey suffered, Hindley prevailed to take an 85-second advantage over the Ecuadorian, the pink jersey was his.
Throughout the three weeks, Hindley was faultless, losing hardly any time to his GC rivals and in his team BORA-Hansgrohe, it’s the first time they’ve achieved a Grand Tour podium place.
Going into the 105th Giro, BORA had a strong team to help Jai Hindley for a GC tilt, put into practice by the time the race reached Italian soil after the Grande Partenza in Hungary. Tour de France stage winner from last year Lennard Kämna set the benchmark by winning Stage 4’s brutal ascent to Mount Etna, a stunning stage win which showed BORA’s roster of talent right from the off.
Deeper into the race, Hindley himself won Stage 9 atop Blockhaus, the eventual winner able to keep pace with the other contenders but also to finish the job in a sprint to the line alongside Richard Carapaz and Romain Bardet. But beyond the Apennines, where the Giro can easily be lost but not won, BORA certainly played their hand well on Stage 14’s circuit race among the steep hills surrounding Turin.
It is no coincidence that one of Jai Hindley’s teammates is Dutchman Wilco Kelderman, who did arrive at this Giro with GC ambitions himself. Both Kelderman and Hindley were together at Team Sunweb (now Team DSM) two years ago when the Giro fell out of their grasp.
The race strategy for the German team at that Giro edition proved fruitless after Kelderman gained pink but lost crucial seconds to others on the Passo dello Stelvio, Hindley excelled to move into pink for one day alone, before Tao Geoghegan Hart beat him right at the very last in the TT.
A mechanical incident at this Giro on Stage 9 doomed Wilco Kelderman’s GC hopes, but in all fairness the Dutchman didn’t sit up and give up. A searing pace on the Stage 14 circuit in and around Turin distanced quite a few contenders, the way BORA-Hansgrohe set themselves up to help Hindley at the end of week two certainly paid off.
The crucial moment that signified why Jai Hindley was the strongest man to win this Giro, was the final 3.5km of the Passo Fedaia, when after three weeks of stalemate against Richard Carapaz, Hindley flew up the final mountain stage to distance the race leader, INEOS left without any answers as to why their man couldn’t follow.
A new era for BORA-Hansgrohe after the entertainment and three-times world champion Peter Sagan moved onto pastures new? The German team put all their eggs into the Giro basket for their 2022 GC ambitions, the chances of pink glory more likely than at a Tour de France where Tadej Pogačar is so dominant. It has paid off with a Vuelta to come later in the year. BORA-Hansgrohe can now call themselves a GC outfit.
When writing the reasons why a rider wins a Grand Tour, one point that must be made is how did the opposition fare? The answer for this Giro d’Italia is not a happy one.
It is disingenuous to say that the GC picture was easy for Jai Hindley to paint because there were hardly any GC threats throughout the three weeks. A pure climber was always likely to prevail at this Giro due to the small amount of time trial kilometres, but going into this race we saw Tom Dumoulin try his best but fall backwards as soon as the race hit a summit.
Dumoulin wasn’t really expected to make a GC challenge, whereas others who were, fell amazingly short. Former podium finisher at the Vuelta, Hugh Carthy finished eighth last year, but since taking third in Spain two years ago the performances by the British climber have dipped. A ninth-placed finish in 2022 after losing chunks of time earlier in the race dealt his hopes another blow but to be fair Carthy did climb better in week three.
Another British rider will leave the Giro with slightly mixed feelings. Simon Yates came to this Giro with high expectations after wearing pink in 2018 before missing out again in 2019 and 2020, Last year saw Yates claim third behind Damiano Caruso and Egan Bernal, but for 2022 after a stunning performance in the Budapest time trial, the stage win came to nothing.
Falling behind on Blockhaus, the big mountain test to conclude week two, Yates suffered too much to repair any chance of clawing back a top-ten let alone another podium place. Another stage win followed on Stage 14 for Simon Yates, his Giro d’Italia stage win tally now up to six.
Team DSM were also left disappointed after the abandon of Romain Bardet, the Frenchman looking very good to challenge for a podium place in a Grand Tour where there is no pressure on Bardet’s shoulders. It’s not the Tour de France, it’s an opportunity to claim a prize away from the yearly circus that draws all the attention of not just non-traditional cycling fans but also keen French fans desperate for a native winner. Bardet (below) sadly couldn’t continue into the third week.
A previous wearer of the pink jersey in João Almeida had to leave the race after Stage 17 due to a positive Covid-19 test, the Portuguese rider always destined to try and improve on his sixth place from last year, as well as another attempt to claim the young rider’s white jersey competition. It ended in despair for him too.
All the contenders dropped like flies at this Giro, which left our eventual winner with only two riders who could genuinely attempt to make his time in the mountains difficult.
Mikel Landa and his Bahrain-Victorious team did increase the tempo on Stage 20 to ride on the front, the Basque climber ultimately satisfied to take his first Grand Tour podium in seven years. For such a long time, Landa’s efforts have perhaps gone undeserved. When he rode for Team Sky in 2017, who can forget the attacks he made to no avail in the GC fight but a stage win and mountains classification achieved.
At so many Tour de France editions, Mikel Landa has been up among the GC heights, the 2017 Tour the one occasion where he could have made the podium but was held back by Chris Froome’s ambitions. At the 2019 Giro he almost made the podium only for Primož Roglič to nick his third place by eight seconds.
It’s clear that Mikel Landa is almost unappreciated for the achievements he has grasped over the years. At 32-years-of-age, time is running out on a Grand Tour win which will probably never come, but what a rider he is!
And finally, there’s a reason why Richard Carapaz excites and entertains on the bike. The Ecuadorian has come close to a second Giro d’Italia title, the maglia rosa just slipping out of his grasp after cracking on the Passo Fedaia.
How will the INEOS Grenadiers assess what has happened? Just when you thought the Giro d’Italia was becoming their dominant Grand Tour unlike the their mishaps at recent Tour de France editions, this Giro has actually fallen out of their favour. Chris Froome managed the mother of all comebacks in 2018, Tao Geoghegan Hart became the next champion in 2020 and last year it was Egan Bernal.
Carapaz hasn’t quite made the cut to win a second Giro after his first when riding for Movistar in 2019. It follows a second overall at the 2020 Vuelta and a third place at the Vuelta last year but on the wider scene, is this going to be the year where INEOS do not take a Grand Tour victory at all for only the second time in their 12 year existence?
Their Tour de France dominance is currently shredded because of Tadej Pogačar and you have to question whether INEOS really have the firepower anymore? At this Giro they did exactly what they did best, secure the pace at the front and put everyone else in difficulty, but this time and in recent years the so-called INEOS machine (or Sky bots as they were known previously) has been defeated.
INEOS falling short however isn’t so much a crisis. The team have had a brilliant Spring Classics campaign beyond even their own imagination and at every race they lineup for they’re always going to be strong. At the Tour, all eyes will be on Egan Bernal, but for this Giro d’Italia it is still unquestionable that Richard Carapaz has more Grand Tour attempts to target.
A 105th Giro d’Italia where the opportunity to claim pink was for anyone willing to take a chance and that’s what this race does well in dramatic fashion.
Jai Hindley has taken a massive leap into cycling glory, but more specifically Giro glory. Of all the three Grand Tours, we know that the Tour de France is the famous one, the Vuelta is a chance to save your season, but the Giro is the one Grand Tour where someone unexpected gets a huge chance to win pink.
Over the years, riders who have worn pink get the spotlight of race leader. Some didn’t quite go all the way but some have made it to the top step, the Trofeo Senza Fine (the Endless Trophy) their own for keeps. Think of Steven Kruijswijk in 2016, Tom Dumoulin in 2017, Simon Yates in 2018, Richard Carapaz in 2019, João Almeida and Tao Geoghegan Hart in 2020 plus the stint in pink Attila Valter had last year – the power of the pink jersey can make a cyclist’s career take off.
For Jai Hindley, the Giro has given the Australian something incredibly special. A Grand Tour victory, a pink jersey upon his back for all of Australian sport to celebrate.
Jai Hindley came close to winning the Giro d’Italia two years ago, but that doesn’t matter now. It played on his mind that lightning couldn’t happen twice. To label himself a Grand Tour champion after starting as an unexpected but also a well known contender takes some mental effort.
It doesn’t matter if others faltered on their way from Hungary to Verona after 21 stages, all Jai Hindley had to do was win the moment in front of him.
A one-hit wonder in 2020? No, not now and not ever. Jai Hindley is the winner of the 105th Giro d’Italia.
