With the Giro resolved in his favor, barring a pandemic catastrophe two stages from the end in Rome, Tadej Pogacar relaxes and lets things happen.
A group of brave people jump at the beginning of the penultimate stage, reach a disproportionate advantage of fifteen minutes, and it is already clear to them that the stage, the 157 km that separates Montegliano from Sappada, is going to be played between them.
The brave overcome ports and slides and at the same time lose units. The willing ones, the animators of this edition, hold on, people like Georg Steinhauser, Jhonatan Narváez, Pelayo Sánchez or Julian Alaphilippe, and all of them, 30 km from the finish line, are attacked by Andrea Vendrame.
He does it in the vertigo of a third-rate drop.
It’s raining and you have to throw flats, and the Italian of the newborn Decathlon is sharpened and pushed to the limit. They hesitate behind and let him do it, and when they move they are already late. Steinhauser maneuvers timidly, as does Pelayo Sánchez, but both are late and with little faith.
By then there are seven km left in the stage, Vendrame is almost reaching the Cima Sappada – from there to the finish line, a gentle descent – and he has opened a margin of one minute for them.
Given that, nothing to do.
The outcome is monotonous.
Vendrame pedals alone, comforted by the few fans who have taken to the roads – it is raining and cold and the history of this Giro was written in the second stage -, Pelayo Sánchez takes second place from him (he arrives at 54 seconds behind Vendrame) to Steinhauser and, a quarter of an hour later, Pogacar arrives, lulled by the peloton, where no one lifts a finger (not even when Geraint Thomas falls: he is expected).
Overall, for what?
