Giro d’Italia Review: Bulgaria to Rome — How Vingegaard Took Control

Before talk turns to Le Tour, we revisit some of the key moments from the 109th edition of La Corsa Rosa.

It began in Bulgaria.

I’m not referring to the Grande Partenza but Jonas Vingegaard’s assault on his fellow general classification contenders.

It was billed by Il Garibaldi, the official road book, as a ⅗-star stage. One of four in this year’s Giro d’Italia over 200 kilometres in length, at 221km, the second leg from Burgas to Veliko Tarnovo contained 2,600 metres of vertical climbing; a modest though by no means a maddening amount.

A trio of GPM mountain primes were en route, with the summit of a Category 3 climb placed just under 11km from the finish.

Most pundits felt this was one for a succesful breakaway. But just two escapees from the Team Polti VisitMalta squad broke clear early on and were caught 27km from home.

Four kilometres later on a sweeping right-hander, under dark clouds and wet roads, a large pileup saw some significant riders abandon, including Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious), Marc Soler and Jay Vine (both UAE Team Emirates-XRG); the race was briefly neutralised, resuming before the Red Bull sprint at km 205.5.

The aforementioned Cat 3, otherwise known as the Lyaskovets Monastery Pass, measured 3.9km with an average gradient of 6.8%.

However, the first third of the climb contained a section with a 14 percent pitch and Vingegaard wanted to test himself – and his rivals – on it.

After his Italian team-mate Davide Piganzoli peeled off and Jonas accelerated, then accelerated again, he discovered only two riders could follow – Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Intermarché).

The trio was caught inside the final kilometre, allowing Guillermo Thomas Silva (XDS Astana) to take stage honours and the maglia rosa, but Vingegaard had seen enough.

When the road veered skywards, he was the strongest.

And so it proved.

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Is a methodical approach always a boring one?

Depends on whether you’re a Jonas fan or not, I guess.

In each of the five high mountain stages, Vingegaard and his coterie did little more than they needed to. Even before the Grande Partenza there was always one eye on the Tour de France, for there are just 34 days between the end of La Corsa Rosa and the start of La Grande Boucle on July 4.

“It looks maybe easy or programmed (because) it is programmed,” Victor Campenaerts, arguably the most indispensable member of Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s Giro team, said in Rome on Sunday, as Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) finally got what he came for.

“It is very well prepared, and (when it comes together) that makes it such a beautiful thing (because) we know what happens. Behind the (television) screens, we know how hard we have worked for this, together.”

On Stage 7 to Blockhaus he attacked five and a half kilometres from the line. Stage 14 to Pila, he went with 4.6km remaining, taking the stage and pink.

Three days later, on Stage 16 to Carì, Jonas took flight with 6.6km to go and created his largest advantage to date; the headline from TNT Sports’ highlight reel read: “Rivals Obliterated!’

Five days from Rome, he enjoyed a 4’03 advantage over Austrian Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM Team); if we’re being honest, the only rider who was close to matching Vingegaard in the mountains, albeit still someway off.

I said ‘little more than needed’ because even when Visma | Lease a Bike was not specifically targeting victory or intent on creating a buffer, they won anyway, such as Stage 9 to Corno alle Scale.

It was the day before the time trial, where Vingegaard’s 13th place on the stage, three minutes behind winner Filippo Ganna (Netcompany INEOS), gave his rivals a false sense of hope that, in the absence of misfortune, he was beatable.

Nup. No such luck.

Such was their confidence, on Stage 19, the queen stage, Jonas gave his American climbing domestique, Sepp Kuss, the green light to go in the early breakaway and vie for the win.

The champion of the 2023 Vuelta a España would be there if Vingegaard found himself in trouble but it never turned out like that.

Not only did Visma | Lease a Bike boast the strongest rider, they also had the strongest team.

Other than the TT blip, the penultimate leg to Piancavallo was perhaps the only stage where things didn’t quite go to plan. The maglia rosa said afterwards the plan was to go closer to the line but he was left without team-mates and “had to improvise a bit”, resulting in him attacking around 11 kilometres out and turning the stage in a mountain time trial… which he won, of course.

Five stage wins and a 5’22 winning margin can only be described as total dominance.

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In this era of Tadej Pogačar and Vingegaard, I think we have to accept that:

• When both are racing the same Grand Tour, barring incident or misfortune, one is likely to win;
• When either one is racing a Grand Tour, barring incident or misfortune, they will be the likely winner;
• When neither is racing a Grand Tour, the race is wide open.

It’s less a defeatist attitude, more pragmatic acceptance that these two guys are a level above the rest of the field when it comes to three week races.

Personally, I found the battle for the remaining podium positions quite engaging.

Three days from Rome and facing back-to-back mega mountain stages, just 1’37 separated second to fifth on the classifica generale; with an audacious move, even those ranked sixth to eighth had a chance to step onto the podium.

The end result saw Gall maintain the second place he held since Stage 16 to Carì, and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) overtake Thymen Arensman (Netcompany INEOS) to claim third overall.

In seven Grand Tour participations it is Gall’s best result and one he can be immensely proud of; for Hindley, winner of the Giro in 2022 and second in 2020, there will be mixed emotions.

The level has increased the past couple of years and so have Pogačar and Vingegaard. To expect to beat one of these two over three weeks is, in most people’s estimation including my own, too big an ask.

The West Australian is down to ride for Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz at the Tour; opportunities may present themselves and, if so, Jai is one to take them, as he showed on Stage 5 of the 2023 edition.

Also, if you wanted to know how much winning the Giro meant to Jonas, watch his post-race interview in Rome.

“It’s amazing… It’s something I’ve dreamt of my whole life,” he said, as the tears began to flow. “To now be able to do it, it’s something special. I’m lost for words.”

Tears of suffering. Tears of joy. Tears of relief.

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Of course, there were the races within the race for GC, and we saw some brilliant breakaways in this Giro.

Despite being down to five men from Stage 3, how UAE Team Emirates-XRG functioned so well is a testament to their sporting management and depth of talent even without Pogačar.

Igor Arrieta kicked things off with a stirring win in Potenza on Stage 5 (more on that later), then Jhonatan Narváez, the Ecuadorian riding like a man reborn since joining UAE last year after six seasons with INEOS Grenadiers, showcased an all-round prowess not unlike that of The Pog to claim a hat-trick of stages.

The one that really tugged the heartstrings, however, was Stage 17.

On June 19, 2022, while racing the third stage of the Route d’Occitanie in France, Michael Valgren crashed on a descent and suffered a fractured pelvis and dislocated hip, and tore his ACL and MCL in his knee.

While not life-threatening it was initially believed to be career threatening – Valgren even stepped down to EF Education-EasyPost’s development team in 2023 to best manage what was a year-long process of recovery.

Facing his demons head-on, he raced the Route d’Occitanie again, the event that almost put paid to his profession.

In 2024 he came oh-so-close to his first Grand Tour victory when he finished second on Stage 5 of the Giro. Last year an eighth place at Strade Bianche was as good as it got, beaten by a barnstorming Pogačar, seven years his junior.

On February 7 this year, when Valgren turned 34, he may have thought his final year of his contract with EF Education-EasyPost could also be his last one.

But the Great Dane – Valgren, not Vingegaard – would not be denied.

At Tirreno-Adriatico, he outlasted a 141km breakaway of eight riders to claim the win in Mombaroccio. Two-and-a-half months later, on a similarly challenging parcours and after 169km in the break, Valgren again proved strongest and smartest, his victory relegating Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) to second place for the third time at this Giro d’Italia.

The three-second margin over his shattered fellow Scandinavian gave him the opportunity to pull out a Pokémon memento from his son… Heartwarming for one, heart-wrenching for another.

And in that moment, the ecstasy and agony of cycling was captured in a nutshell.

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A review of this 109th Giro would not be complete without mention of Afonso Eulálio.

In only his second Grand Tour, not a great deal was expected from this smiley 24-year-old from Portugal.

However, on the fifth stage, when the Bahrain-Victorious rider found himself in a dozen-strong early breakaway, which was then whittled down to just he and UAE-XRG’s Igor Arrieta inside the final 50km, the expectation went from not much to quite a lot.

In apocalyptic conditions – a number of riders said afterwards it was in their top three or five hardest days on the bike – Arrieta, despite crashing twice and going the wrong way once, would win the stage, but Eulálio inherited the maglia rosa – which he then so charismatically, enthusiastically, and determinedly, held onto for a further nine days.

He traded pink for the maglia bianca of best young rider, which he wore with equal lashings of pride and finished in Rome as just that, not to mention ending the race sixth overall.

Quite a change from his DNF on Stage 19 a year earlier.

I feel confident in saying we will look back on this Giro as the race that saw Eulálio transform from boy to man, and, in races that suit his ability, be now viewed as a favourite rather than outsider.

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