Featured image courtesy of LUCA BETTINI AFP via Getty Images
The first Grand Tour of the season is over. Another edition of the Giro d’Italia has sadly concluded. After 2020 was a year of disruption to the calendar, we only had to wait six months for the 104th edition, the race returned to its rightful place in May. Normality is finally returning to the world of cycling, evident in yet another Grand Tour triumph for the INEOS Grenadiers. Egan Bernal is a new name in pink but not a first-time Grand Tour winner.
Across the three weeks, how did INEOS win their 12th Grand Tour since Chris Froome’s Vuelta win in 2011? Ten years on, the pink, the yellow and the red continues to be won by the British team. We also saw one sprinter well on course to reach his yearly aim, so many breakaway wins and then the final general classification sorted in week three.
Egan Bernal looking pretty in pink
How can you sum up this talented Colombian climber? In one word – determined. This Giro was literally bulldozed by the INEOS Grenadiers. Egan Bernal now has his second Grand Tour after winning the Tour de France in 2019, but more importantly this Giro was won via the collective strength of a team who do have the biggest budget in cycling and can afford the best riders. Despite a few signs of fatigue in week three, Bernal managed to defend pink from Stage 9 all the way through to the final time trial in Milan. Filippo Ganna wore pink after taking the opening TT in Turin, which in turn led to 16 of the 21 stages seeing INEOS wear the maglia rosa.
So how did Egan Bernal do it? A welcome return to form was what INEOS were hoping for after winning the Tour two and then suffering at last year’s race because of a back injury. All the questions leading into this Giro were about Bernal’s back – surely he cannot recover and deliver a maiden Giro.
The opening TT saw him home safe, Stages 4 and 6 to saw a stretch of the legs atop some crucial uphill finishes, Bernal taking a few seconds from other rivals. It wasn’t until the Campo Felice summit on Stage 9 when Bernal decided to hit home how good he can be. A gravel section on the final climb saw him steal some marginal seconds but enough to wear pink – not forgetting his first Grand Tour stage win on top of that.
From the Apennines heading northwards towards more harder terrain, Bernal gradually increased his lead, most especially on Stage 11’s dirt roads of Tuscany, looking resplendent in pink atop Monte Zoncolan, and then the re-routed Stage 16 Dolomite showdown over the Passo Giau and down into Cortina.
No rider can dominate a Giro d’Italia by being infallible across three weeks. The Giro has form as the likes of Steven Kruijswijk and Simon Yates know too well. Taking the maglia rosa early in week one without showing any weakness in week two, it was fair to say that you can have doubts about Bernal carrying pink all the way through a three week tour. Stage 17 to Sega di Ala did see the first chink in Bernal’s armour as Simon Yates and Damiano Caruso piled on the pressure, the attempt to try and make the Colombian work for pink certainly made it interesting.
While Yates and Caruso stole a march to take stage wins on Stages 19 and 20, the damage to Bernal was not enough to shake him. Because the Giro is the Giro you might have expected the pink jersey to blow entirely, crack before our eyes and lose everything altogether. But in the end it is testament to Egan Bernal that he did not lose his head, he managed to keep pace, limit his losses, and then seal the deal on Stage 20.
INEOS have played another Grand Tour perfectly, but also a first where they have actually carried the Giro race lead longer than previous wins with Chris Froome and Tao Geoghegan Hart. Another two TT stage wins for Filippo Ganna (that’s now five consecutive time trial stages won at the Giro), who motored along to destroy the field on Stage 11’s Tuscan dirt roads, Jonathan Castroviejo produced another super domestique performance, Gianni Moscon was always around to help out and in fellow Colombian Dani Martínez, Egan Bernal owes a lot to him. Martínez was signed by INEOS late last year from EF Education Nippo and he has shown why the team brought him in – a calm head, a world-class climber and the ability to even climb high to fifth overall in GC.
The final mountain stage was a model of team strength and tactics where Caruso attacked over the San Bernadino and Splugen passes required a calm head and the team definately had it. The Italian never went over a minute and on the final summit the work by Martínez even distanced Yates. A monumental effort by the entire team to deliver Bernal safe in the knowledge that a significant two minute advantage over Caruso was enough despite the Milan time trial.
What next for Egan Bernal? At 24-year-of-age, two Grand Tours under his belt is not a bad return! The 2019 Tour de France saw joint leadership with Geraint Thomas and no stage win to his name. Last year was a nightmare with his back injury but now one year on, the Colombian has achieved arguably his biggest career win to date. The Tour victory two years ago will always be a special occasion for Colombia’s sporting history, but for this Giro, Bernal becomes only the third Colombian to win pink. This was Bernal’s first Grand Tour as out-and-out team leader, a new experience with the constant post-race interviews that he has never had to do before, but most significantly Bernal the rider that he is has excelled on and off the bike. He has grown into a mature, determined and world-class Grand Tour contender.
It is unlikely that Bernal will head to the Tour de France but the Vuelta later in August might be his next objective. If Bernal could win the Vuelta this year he will complete the set as the youngest to win all three Grand Tours ever. The task ahead could be a historic one as Alberto Contador in 2008 was the last rider to win the Giro and Vuelta in the same year. The likelihood of Bernal riding the Vuelta will be strong, skipping the Tour will mean that the elusive Giro-Tour double goes on, but a debut Vuelta after winning a maiden Giro, taking the red jersey in Spain would be huge for Bernal.
For now Egan Bernal enjoys a Giro triumph alongside valued team-mates, a team that continues to win Grand Tours. Could a 13th triumph be on the cards at the Tour? Who knows but you might be wise not to bet against it!
A worthy podium for Damiano Caruso as Simon Yates falls short
After so many years offering himself, sacrificing himself for the success of others, Damiano Caruso gets one of the biggest rewards he could have asked for. If you’d have told Caruso going into this Giro that he’d get a first-ever stage win at a Grand Tour as well as second place on GC, the Italian would have called you a madman.
Bahrain-Victorious arrived at this Giro with Mikel Landa as their leader along with last year’s fifth placed rider Pello Bilbao. Landa’s unfortunate abandon on Stage 5 was certainly a blow as well as losing Matej Mohorič on Stage 9, finishing the Giro with only five riders left. For Caruso though this Giro has been a dream come true, the man himself probably still dreaming. His sole aim at this race was to help Landa make at least the podium, but it is amazing what a little freedom can do. In some ways it was an added bonus for Caruso to give it as best a shot as possible – opportunities to make the podium at a Grand Tour don’t come often.
Nobody predicted how Damiano Caruso would do at this Giro. He has succeeded in finishing inside the top ten at Grand Tours before – ninth at the 2014 Vuelta and tenth at the 2020 Tour just some of his best. After Landa’s abandon, the Italian moved onto the podium after the Stage 11 Tuscan dirt roads and then on Stage 16 he was one of very few who could follow Egan Bernal’s explosive attack over the Passo Giau – the stage we never got to see because of picture breakup!
Limiting his losses as best as possible on Stage 16, Damiano Caruso did not put a foot wrong in the third week, capped off by another dream coming true atop the Alpe Motta. A solo victory after escaping the pink jersey group down the San Bernadino pass, the gap to Bernal wasn’t big enough to win the Giro but it certainly made INEOS take notice – the moment when he patted Bilbao on the back to say thank you for giving everything was a wonderful thing to see.
A once in a lifetime opportunity for the 33-year-old Italian. A confidence boost to do more? Damiano Caruso has paid the ultimate sacrifice for others, maybe it is time for he himself to lead a team and go for future Grand Tours. On the 160th anniversary of Italy’s unification, it was fitting that the 104th Giro saw a home boy on the podium.
It has been an eventful Giro for Simon Yates. Stage win in the bag and third place overall with be satisfying but maybe some disappointment as the aim was to try and win the Giro. Take nothing away from Yates or Team Bike Exchange, it has been another successful Grand Tour considering that third is the best result Yates has ever recorded at the Giro, now his second podium at a Grand Tour.
SImon Yates is a top Grand Tour contender, he has the complete set of stage wins at all three and you have to bare in mind that the significant change in perspective was 2018 when he came within touching distance of winning pink and then three months later rectifying that disappointment with red at the Vuelta. Water has turned into wine for Yates and Team Bike Exchange, a team that can challenge for success at a three week tour with many more Giro d’Italia’s to come for Yates to challenge.
Going into this Giro it was no secret that Yates had the form as the overall win at the Tour of Alps showed. Team tactics and race preparation was probably quite easy to identify. Because of lived experiences racing in pink, conserving as much energy and not going straight from the gun as Yates did in 2018, it was understandable why holding something back proved important. Into week three and Simon Yates was looking good. A stage win at Alpe di Mera, putting Egan Bernal under pressure and then losing a bit of time on Stage 20 as well as the Milan TT.
Did Simon Yates ride perhaps too conservatively? Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it is a fair question. Maybe following Egan Bernal’s accelerations in week one wasn’t a bad idea but ultimately a good day on Stage 14 atop Monte Zoncolan followed a disappointing hemorrhage of time two days later in the Dolomites. Bad weather clearly did not favour Simon Yates but he’ll be back for future Tours of Italy. 28-years-of-age, another British rider on the podium at a Grand Tour – no regrets, a remarkable achievement and fair play after having to leave last year’s edition due to COVID.
The Tour de France looks set to be his next destination, a repeat of 2019 when Yates tried to go again at the Giro, finished a respectable eighth and then managed to take two stage wins in France. More Tour stage wins are now the aim, going for the GC will be a big ask, and then there’s the Olympics to look forward to.
It wasn’t a pink jersey for Simon Yates but once again he’s performed, shown what he can do, with a Giro d’Italia victory not out of the question just yet.
The other GC positions
Outside the top three, the top ten in the general classification saw names who should be proud of their achievements but also a new statistic where almost 17 minutes between first and tenth overall becomes the the biggest gap in Giro history since 2006.
Astana’s Aleksandr Vlasov in fourth might look disappointing considering how good he has been in recent months but overall motivation and some glimpses of acceleration will do him the world of good. A career-best result can be seen as progress for a rider who has risen through the ranks and looks set to progress further. At 25-year-of-age, Vlasov is one of so many within the top-ten who are in their youth. You only have to look at Jumbo-Visma’s Tobias Foss to notice that cycling continues to produce young world-class talent capable of winning Grand Tours. Jumbo-Visma may regret how they rode the Giro with George Bennett as their main man but in the end Foss’s ninth overall should be commendable.
Going into the race all eyes were on Remco Evenepoel to see how he goes in his first Grand Tour. It wasn’t to be after losing so much time on Stages 11, 14 and more at the start of week three. Questions will undoubtedly be aimed at Deceuninck-Quick Step. Was Evenepoel really ready to take on this Giro with hardly any racing in the legs? He will take valued experience from this Giro but if you’re João Almeida you might be feeling what if? The Portuguese rider rode exceptionally in the pink jersey last year and this year all the effort to offer his services for Evenepoel can be seen as a bad decision by Quick Step. Big regrets and an eventual sixth place overall, Almeida (below) rode well in week three to try and get a stage win, but who knows, a podium place might have been a possibility. A decent time trialist, he can climb, Almeida will be leaving Quick Step at the end of the season. Whichever team he ends up in, time to invest in his abilities come future Grand Tours.
Praise must also go to Romain Bardet who clearly has not lost his Grand Tour pedigree. The Frenchman can climb with new freedom at Team DSM and without the spotlight shone on him at the Tour. A respectable seventh overall and as Simon Yates is one British rider who has had a good Giro, EF Education Nippo’s Hugh Carthy should also take heart from another top result at a three week race. It be a slight disappointment that Carthy could not finish closer to the podium after finishing third at the Vuelta last year, but the Vuelta this year and future Giro’s ahead look promising.
Dan Martin rounds off the top ten, a rider who continues to show what he’s all about at Grand Tours. The Irishman is never a genuine contender to win a Grand Tour, but year after year he is a credit to the sport with his attacking intent, having a go and finally he completed the set. A stage win in Italy, he now has wins in all three – a Grand Slam hatrick for Dan Martin, the third Irish rider to do so.
He wore pink after Stage 6 and held it for three days, a mention must go to Groupama-FDJ’s Attila Valter. The first Hungarian to wear a Grand Tour leader’s jersey, the Giro starts in Hungary next year, so he will be well known name now more than ever.
13 first-time stage wins and the breakaways! How many breakaways!
So many breakaways succeeded at the Giro that if you lost count then you can be forgiven. Ten breakaways were successful all the way to the line and 13 of the 21 stages were won by first-timers. A debut stage win at a Grand Tour makes a name for yourself and many who did, we’ve already seen glimpses of what they can do. Stage 8 to Guardia Sanframondi won by Victor Lafay was one example by a rider who almost won a stage at the Vuelta last year but instead did it in Italy.
UAE-Team Emirates came with a plan to win stages and they got one with Joe Dombrowski, two sprinters in Tim Merlier and Giacomo Nizzolo took glory for the first time, Alberto Bettiol winning the longest stage of the entire race was a good highlight too, the Italian riding only his second Giro and producing some heroic performances in support of Hugh Carthy, stage victory was a well deserved reward for the 2019 Tour of Flanders champion. Egan Bernal took his first Grand Tour stage win on his way to pink and as mentioned before the sacrifice over the years paid off for Damiano Caruso.
Seven mentioned and there’s still more!
The individual triumph is one anything but the prestige it brings to a team is on another level. This year’s race was a joy for lesser known teams especially those who do not have the biggest budgets. Nizzolo’s first-ever sprint victory was joined by young Swiss rider Mauro Schmid taking the dirt road stage in Tuscany and Victor Campenaerts winning Stage 15. Team Qhubeka-ASSOS are in need of a sponsor next year, a team who even thought they were gone at the end of 2020 – what a turnaround, where investment is worth it.
Gino Mäder on Stage 6 was on part of a bittersweet Giro for Bahrain-Victorious, AG2R will be satisfied that Geoffrey Bouchard took home the maglia azzurra as King of the Mountains but also a victory for Andrea Vendrame on Stage 12, but take a bow Lorenzo Fortunato who took a glorious win atop the beast that is Monte Zoncolan! EOLO-Kometa arrived as the team owned by former Giro champions Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso and then announced themselves on the biggest of occasions. Who knows what comes next for Fortunato, 25-years-of-age with a big future ahead.
The best breakaway of the lot though goes to Stage 3. Taco van der Hoorn was the only survivor left from the break, found himself alone and managed to hold off the emerging sprinters behind. Intermarché – Wanty – Gobert Matériaux do not take many wins but the win for the Dutchman will live long in the memory.
Nobody dominated the sprints
Six flat stages were presented to the sprinters teams at this Giro and in the end five of them did go to the fast men. Yet nobody won more than two. Caleb Ewan taking stages 5 and 7 means he’s well on his way to achieving his 2021 goal – to win stages at all three Grand Tours in one season. He sadly had to leave the race due to a knee injury among unfair criticism from Eddy Merckx but overall Lotto Soudal will be pleased.
Plaudits must go to Giacomo Nizzolo after winning his first Giro points jersey in 2015 without winning a stage, that feeling might’ve started to feel elusive. 139 Giro stage starts and 11 second-placed finishes later, he finally won a stage – celebrations all around and as European as well as Italian road champion, it was written in the stars.
Tim Merlier taking the win as a rookie Grand Tour sprinter was an unexpected surprise but when fast finishes become messy, you never know what can happen. Alpecin-Fenix arrived with the Belgian as a man with decent Classics already to his name – the team could not have asked for a better Grand Tour debut, the standard now set for the Tour de France when Mathieu van der Poel announces himself at the biggest scene in cycling.
A new love affair with the Giro went further for former three-times world champion Peter Sagan. He took a terrific solo stage win last year on debut and now in 2021 he won a bunch sprint ahead of Fernando Gaviria and Elia Viviani on Stage 10. To make things even better Sagan takes home the maglia ciclamino points jersey, his eighth Grand Tour points jersey. The Tour de France next and with Peter Sagan being Peter Sagan, another green jersey is his speciality.
Another Giro d’Italia complete, we only had to wait six months. The 104th Giro with 13 first-time stage winners and a young Colombian near enough dominating the race despite a few signs of fatigue in week three is an amazing achievement. Egan Bernal deserves all the plaudits for being the best over the three weeks. He takes the pink jersey, a second Grand Tour to his name with many more to come.
One Grand Tour done, attention turns towards the Tour de France…
