Rome and a victory parade. There is suspense to come. Don’t tune expecting action from start to finish, but there is massive pressure on Jonathan Milan to salvage a sprint win at the end.
Stage 20 Review: a fifth stage win for Jonas Vingegaard. Once again Felix Gall tried to follow Vingegaard’s move then thought better of it a few seconds later while the others could not move. Gall was second, Hindley third, the podium in order.
There was no little else to decrypt on a day that proved as formulaic as a sprint stage but Afonso Eulalio finished 7th, soaking up an attempt from Davide Piganzoli before countering and jumping away to secure the white jersey.
The Route: the same as usual, a trip to the coast and then back through the Eur district before laps around Rome.
The Contenders: imagine if Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) wins? Because it’s better than imagining he loses, hauling his carcass around Italy for three weeks and not winning a stage despite being rated among the best sprinters in the world and winning the points competition in this race twice. He’s been close this month, he’s got a solid lead-out and has made mistakes before that can be corrected today.
Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) has thrived in this Giro and jumped into every opening he’s got. He’s got three wins and the points jersey so can sit up and eat an ice cream if he wants but that’s hardly his style.
Dylan Groenewegen has been close but that’s his problem, the Rockets have a strong squad for the final 5km and the lead-out but their point man isn’t the force he used to be.
Tobias Lund (Decathlon-CMA CGM) has been close and now gets a team ready to help him again.
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Milan |
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Magnier |
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Groenewegen, Lund |
Weather: sunny and 29°C
TV: KM0 is at 4.45pm and the finish is forecast for 6.45pm CEST. Tune in for the sprint finish.
Postcard from Rome
Today’s finishing circuit goes past the Colosseum, the amphitheatre that used to host gladiatorial fights for pleasure of the Emperor and others, something that most people have evolved beyond.
One of the traditions was the Emperor could raise a thumb or lower it to seal the fate of a fighter, something that could not happen today.
Only one rider who won’t see the Colosseum today is Bardiani’s Enrico Zanoncello. He was thrown off the race after the Milan stage for head-butting another rider. Some brief video footage doing the rounds shows him heading Robert Donaldson of Jayco who crashes hard, sliding at speed. An “act of blatant aggression” wrote Cycling Weekly.
Only did Zanoncello really deserve this instant verso pollice judgement? It’s more likely a wave of riders sees GFDJ’s Paul Penhoët collided with Zanoncello and the Italian is left trying to stay upright and in the split second this balancing act sees his neck and head hit Donaldson rather than a move designed to intimidate or destabilise Donaldson, who was after all going backwards having done his lead-out work.
If a bigger name rider was involved or just from bigger team things might have been different. See the appeal by Peter Sagan and the UCI after his exclusion from the 2017 Tour de France for the case study. But as a ProTeam reliant on a wildcard invite there’s less room for Bardiani to argue back, they’re supposed to gallop away at KM0 and provide animation, not litigation. This does feel a bit Roman.
Only so much though. The commissaires at the Giro are not reclining on velvet seats while being fed grapes. They’re volunteers, often taking unpaid time off work and given a €200 per day allowance, an economy flight to and from the race and the beige chinos/navy blazer uniform and little else. In exchange they get privilege to see the race up close but it’s not the imperial tribune.
It won’t be fixed today but given team budgets have soared, even for Bardiani, any rulings can be very expensive for riders and teams on the ruling end. Another Sagan-like incident from 2017 this summer or next and – these things happen after an incident, not out of foresight – soon there could be calls to professionalise cycling’s referees, or if not have some kind of tribunal on stand-by.