Though splits did occur on that climb, the sprinters made it over and a big group of 59 riders eventually came together. More important, Narváez and his team did not attack. In the end, Soudal Quick-Step’s Paul Magnier was given a splendid lead-out by Jasper Stuyven and easily won his third stage of the race.
With the 50 points awarded for the win, he took back the points leader’s maglia ciclamino, or purple jersey, from Narváez and now leads the competition by 37 points over the Ecuadorian champion, with pre-race favorite Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) in third, 92 points adrift. With two big mountain stages and a likely sprint finish in the final stage to come, the 22-year-old Frenchman now looks likely to win the competition when the race ends Sunday in Rome.
But it didn’t look good for him before the stage because Narváez had come into stage 18 leading Magnier by 12 points and looked set to increase his advantage.
That was not the plan
“It was not the plan we discussed this morning, but sometimes it pays off,” Stuyven said immediately after the stage, confirming what Soudal staff had told TNT Sports in the morning about not expecting a sprint finish on the stage. But the team reacted quickly when Magnier and the sprinters rejoined the peloton in the last 5km of the stage.
They then led him to the front, where Stuyven put in a powerful burst to take him clear, so that when the Frenchman put on the afterburners, he already had a lead over Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious), who came second, and Milan, who finished third. “There was a bit of chaos, but we found each other at the right moment,” said Stuyven.
For Magnier, the win was a delightful surprise. “I did not expect it to happen today, which makes it even more beautiful,” he told TNT Sports. “I can really thank my team for the confidence. I was not confident this morning. I was even dropped on the first climb and then I tried to focus again, and all my teammates stayed around me on the [final] climb and they made it a sprint. And Jasper Stuyven gave a beautiful lead-out, so I’m so happy to win here today.”
Narváez temporarily rides into the purple jersey
Narváez had taken over the points classification lead by winning the intermediate sprint and finishing ninth on Thursday’s stage 18. But it could have been much more because this medium-mountain day suited his particular riding skills to a T. And his motivation remained high, for it would be a triumph for the team to come out of the Giro with a major jersey after riding almost the entire race with only five riders, with three principals having abandoned after crashing on stage 2.
Because it was a stage made for a breakaway and 16 teams had yet to register a victory in the race, the action was hot and heavy from the start as rider after rider jumped on potential breaks, and break after break was chased down or simply petered out. Narváez bided his time and jumped on the final breakaway, which eventually contained 29 riders. He was able to win the intermediate sprint because Magnier and the other sprinters were dropped from the peloton on the stage’s first climb.
As the giant breakaway broke up on the short, steep climbs of the final 35km of the 202km course from Cassano d’Adda to Andalo, Narváez found himself in a 10-rider group chasing a six-rider group, but without the legs to bridge the gap. And his many attempts to force his fellow travelers to chase down the lead group came to nothing because no one was interested in helping him collect a fourth stage win. A stage that was tailor-made for him ended up exposing his fatigue, and that of teammate Igor Arrieta, no doubt as a result of five riders having done the work of eight for nearly three weeks.
Arrieta was part of the lead group that also contained Michael Valgren (EF Education–EasyPost), Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), Einer Rubio (Movistar), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) and 38-year-old Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious). Of these teams, EF Education, Red Bull and Movistar had yet to win a stage, so the action over the last few kilometers was explosive, with rider after rider attacking on the very lumpy terrain.
Finally, when the terrain flattened 1km from the finish, Valgren launched a violent attack that only Leknessund could follow, without, however, threatening the 34-year-old Dane, who took the first Grand Tour stage win of his career.
A successful rider, with victories in the Amstel Gold Race and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Valgren had suffered what many thought were career-ending injuries – a fractured pelvis, dislocated hip and torn knee ligaments – when he crashed at the Route d’Occitanie. A stage victory at this year’s Tirreno-Adriatico was his first win since that crash.
“It was super-hard, I was really on my limit,” Valgren said after the stage. “I didn’t have any more food for a while, because the cars were really [far] behind us. I was really worried and thought I was going to bonk. I was lucky it wasn’t 500m longer. I missed this on my resume. I think I deserve this, I think my career has been really good, but I needed this stage win.”
Vingegaard is in charge
On Tuesday’s stage 16, Jonas Vingegaard took his fourth stage win of the Giro when, now apparently fully recovered from a recent illness, he outclassed his GC rivals on another summit finish. And again his Visma–Lease a Bike teammates were flawless, tirelessly controlling the peloton and setting a high pace on the final climb to sap the legs of the other GC contenders.
In the end, his margin over Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) – who deserves a special jersey for finishing second for the fourth time – was 1:09, with Jai Hindley coming in 2 seconds later, in third. “Yeah, he showed again who is in charge here,” Gall said after the stage. “Also, as a team, it is really impressive. Jonas is just doing his thing.”
It was Vingegaard’s fourth victory on a summit finish in the race, and this latest climb, at Carì (11.7km @ 7.9%, with a max of 13% at the top), was a real grind. Again, the remarkable 23-year-old Davide Piganzoli set him up for the winning attack. He rode so hard that by the time the Dane attacked with 6.6km left to ride, there were only four riders left in what used to be the peloton.
It was a special victory for Vingegaard because he won the stage while riding in the race leader’s pink jersey for the first time. “My teammates and I were very motivated for it,” he explained afterwards. “We wanted to try and win in the pink jersey. . . . My teammates again did an amazing job; they pulled from the start, and they didn’t give the breakaway any chances today, and on the last climb then they reduced the bunch. Then I had to do the rest, and I’m happy once again that I can pay off my teammates.”
Asked if he was now thinking about matching Tadej Pogačar**’s** 2024 haul of six stage wins, Vingegaard said, “No. [I’ll] take it day by day. Now I have four stages and we will see what we’ll do for the rest of the week.” His lead of 4:03 over Gall is the largest margin in the Giro, except for Pogačar’s, in the last 10 years. Thymen Arensman sits third, at 4:27. Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious), who wore the pink jersey for nine days, lost more time and slipped off the podium, now sitting fifth. A top 10 finish for the courageous Portuguese rider would be a well-deserved reward for his eye-opening performance.