The stage, that of the beautiful landscapes of the Siena hills, and some of its gray clay paths, between some lonely cypress and a lot of wind, started from the lake where Puccini hunted and composed, on the Tuscan coast, inspiration for La Bohème, and ended in the Rapolano hot springs, where a statue remembers that the liberator Garibaldi recovered there for a few months from the wounds of the battle of Aspromonte, and there would stay safely, in the hot springs, recovering from his efforts, Pelayo Sánchez, an Asturian from Teyego (75 inhabitants) with the name of an unredeemed Asturian, and unredeemed cyclist who on the final slope was neither a crazy fighter nor a pure fighter, but wise, a veteran and cold strategist, so calm, not even a tremor in his hands, as if instead Of the recently turned 24 years old, and his infancy, he was an old, expert and cunning dog. He did not win a battle, but a stage of the Giro, his debut in the WorldTour, defeating by speed and coldness someone like Julian Alaphilippe, a teacher from whom everyone learned nothing, the French double world champion, a cyclist in decline, who was denied the redemption and nourishment of the pride that everyone I wanted him.
Tadej Pogacar, who entered with the peloton at 29s, remains the leader with 46s over Geraint Thomas, and will start last on Friday, with the pink jersey, in the very tough time trial in Umbria, 41 kilometers between Foligno and Perugia.
It was a fugue of three distilled from a larger one that took centuries to form, and at full speed. With Pelayo, recently arrived on the big stage, first year at Movistar after hard learning at Burgos, a boy for all terrains, and a lifelong cyclist’s wisdom, a wild Australian trotter, Luke Plapp, without change of pace, and the fallen Alaphilippe, a winner who since his second world championship, in September 2021, has only won four races and has seen how he was thrown off the big stage by the cyclists of the Van der Poel generation, and how Patrick Lefévère, the head of his team, insulted him for not winning. And he taught them both how to win.
It was a day marked for great actions. The south of Siena, the lands of the hills and the Strade Bianche, the Pogacar garden of course, and the marketing experts had already decided that the phenomenal Slovenian, the cyclist of whose will, and his rebellious dyed hairs under the shell of the helmet , seems to depend not only on the progress of the Giro but also on the orbits of the planets and the fashions and colors of society, I would not waste the day for a new exhibition that would leave everyone, again, with his mouth open. After the first days of fireworks, Pogacar, already transformed into the Pink Panther (and so he proclaims it on his Instagram), pinks his helmet, his glasses, his jersey, his shorts, his bicycle and also pinks the thin laces of his white sneakers. , has fully entered into the Giro dynamic: it no longer counts what is spent, but what is saved; After today comes tomorrow – time trial on Friday, mountain on Saturday; a stage is a stage, one more step, not a classic, the last step. With Thomas’s Ineos and Pogacar’s UAE at the head of the pack, more police than thieves, more controllers than incitors to the breakup, the 12 kilometers of gravel and gray clay roads, three stretches of four, and even a 20-minute pass. % they passed the train in a cloud of dust, riders in the dust. Nobody was left behind. No one suffered more than from the dust that dried their throats. The Giro will be played on other days. On the way to Rapolano Terme, only a few risked their pride, and their dreams, Pelayo.
“From the beginning of the Giro, I tried to save energy. I wasted time every day waiting for my appointed day to arrive, today. In the escape I waited for my moment to move and eliminate rivals,” explained the happy Asturian. “When I stayed with Plapp and Alaphilippe, I tried to collaborate with them and I also tried to get them off the hook, but it was impossible. So I tried it at the end of the sprint and luckily I was the fastest.” And the most lucid, the freshest.
One kilometer from the finish, the Asturian was the worst placed of the three escapees who, with a handful of seconds ahead of the peloton, played for the stage victory. He was second, behind Plapp and with Alaphilippe at the wheel. He did not like his situation at all and without hesitation, determined to be fast, he braked and opened to the right, making Alaphilippe lose pace and hesitate, who had no choice but to overtake him, and, now third, he dedicated the next 800 meters, a long It costs 6%, to score and get on the nerves of the French teacher. He didn’t even speed up when no one was moving past the 200 meter sign. In the end the Frenchman started, and just a tenth of a second later the Asturian finally moved, fresher, stronger, faster. It is the 111th Spanish stage victory in the Giro d’Italia, the first in five years, since Pello Bilbao, then in Astana, won in L’Aquila and in Monte Avena, in the Giro that he won with the jersey of the Movistar Richard Carapaz.
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