with videoThe last mountain stage of the Giro turned out to be a cycling drama for Thymen Arensman. Against his will and on the intercession of the DSM team management, Arensman rode in the leading group all day while he had wanted to save his legs for Sunday’s final time trial in Verona. “Now I’m just afraid I don’t have anything. Not tomorrow either.”
Arensman, for example, stands disillusioned, with an empty body and broken morals in the finish line. After almost five hours of cycling with three monster climbs, he is left with nothing more than a fifth place behind stage winner Alessandro Covi. The Italian is very happy after his stage win. Just like Jai Hindley who drives Richard Carapaz out of the pink in the last mountain stage and is now almost a minute and a half ahead with the time trial ahead. But Arensman stands on top of the Passo Fedaia closer to crying than laughing.
“This is very disappointing. I didn’t want to be in the leading group at all. I’d had my head on tomorrow for days to save myself for that. I did a lead out for Martijn Tusveld and Chris Hamilton, but they just didn’t have the legs. They couldn’t follow and I ended up there. That was not the intention. My mind was on tomorrow, so maybe I didn’t have the full commitment to go for it.”
It sounds bizarre. Riding in a leading group for hours, agonizing legs while the head says ‘stop’. Arensman, who was so ungrateful to second behind Jan Hirt earlier in the week in the stage to Aprica, is now leading the way all day. But he doesn’t want to fight for the stage win. But squeezing the brakes and lowering himself, that is what Arensman is told from the DSM team manager’s car. ,,The team said I just had to stay in the leading group and try to keep it going a bit. Do with as little as possible. I followed that up. But I don’t know very well. We are still discussing it with the team.” What could he have done differently? “Not being in the leading group, but that’s not up to me.”
Jai Hindley took over the pink jersey from Richard Carapaz. The Australian lost the classification leader on the final climb of the queen stage, which was won by early breakaway Alessandro Covi. Read today’s report here!
Throughout the day in the Dolomites, Arensman is in two minds. In last summer’s Vuelta he finished third in the final time trial. After his second place in Aprica, he referred to this with the idea to go all out on the final day in Verona. But his fellow escapees mainly see Arensman as a threat, they have seen how well he can climb in recent Giro weeks. That status haunts him in the leading group. In the beginning there are also Mathieu van der Poel, Sam Oomen and Gijs Leemreize in it. In the end, Arensman is left with Giulio Ciccone, Domen Novak and Antonio Pedrero who look to him for the chase on Covi. “I think it’s weird too. I’ve never won anything, never proved anything in cycling. But I had the feeling that everyone is watching me in that leading group. That’s why Covi drove so far away, because I didn’t really want to drive. I was completely focused on the time trial.”
Team DSM won the eleventh stage of the Giro with sprinter Alberto Dainese, but saw leader Romain Bardet, the number 4 in the standings, fall ill two days later. The next day Cees Bol also got off.
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