• Giro d'Italia This is the classification

There is no queen stage in the Giro

, but there is an almighty king who crushes his rivals, even if nobody sees him doing it. An emperor never needed that his people contemplate his battles to recognize the authority of his victories and neither does

Egan Bernal

require it

, who wins as he wants, who risks only what he needs and who enters the finish line after taking off his raincoat. Let the whole world see his '

pink jersey

' and pay homage to him as a champion, because only a misfortune can take this Giro from him, that of his thunderous return, his great conquest. "

I wanted to show that I am back

." He more than succeeded.

This Monday was to be the queen stage of the Giro, a dolomitic hell with the ascents to

Fedaia

(or

Marmolada

),

Bordoi and Giau

chained, in a journey of

212 kilometers

, more than six hours of agony. But prudence prevailed over the hunger for a show and the organization decided in the morning to

cut the 'tappone

', extirpating Fedaia and Bordoi and jibarizing the route up to

153 kilometers

, limiting the mountainous difficulties to the

initial

La Crosetta

and the

Giau

, new '

Cima Coppi

'(highest point of the edition) instead of the Bordoi.

"Our priority objective is to

ensure that cyclists reach Milan safely

. With the weather conditions that existed, we prioritized doing an intense and shorter stage than risking a complex situation, that is why we cut the two long descents", argued

Mauro Vegni

, director of the Giro, noting that it was a decision made by the organization, without pressure from teams and riders.

Finally, it was preferable to frustrate the expectation of an epic stage than to risk that circumstances would force the day to be suspended midway, as happened to the

Tour two years ago

on the stage ending in Tignes, the one that visited Bernal yellow. Or, given what has been seen, risk that the production would run for hours without live images, as happened in the final part of the ascent to Giau and in the subsequent descent to

Cortina d'Ampezzo

, without a single shot in the

final 20 kilometers.

. Between the moment when Bernal surpassed an outstanding

Pedrero

to take the head of the race and his arrival at the finish line, everything was left to the imagination of the spectator.

A forced fade to black that did not detract from the irrepressible triumph of the Colombian.

24 minutes to Evenepoel

This time, an escape was not going to succeed, largely because

Hugh Carthy's Education First

insisted that it not.

And that the getaway, which started with 24 riders and was soon reduced to six, was of many carats.

Gorka Izagirre, Pedrero, Almeida, Formolo, Nibali and Ghebreigzabhier

, climbers with pedigree who held the pulse until the first ramps of the Giau, about 25 kilometers from the finish line, with the Spaniard from Movistar as the last and fierce survivor.

By then,

Education First

had already crushed the group with a devastating pace, taking advantage of the more than 60 kilometers of smooth but continuous ascent towards the roof of this Giro. The peloton was falling apart, with illustrious fallen as

Evenepoel

, who left a real outrage at the finish (24 minutes), confirming that the '

Corsa Rosa

' was too gigantic a challenge after nine months without competing. The normal thing, although in his case almost nothing is.

When

Simon Carr,

the last gregarious of Carthy, broke down, it was

Daniel Felipe Martínez

, Bernal's

henchman,

who took the reins of a group in which only

Caruso, Bardet

survived (after an untimely breakdown of

Vlasov

)

, Yates and Ciccone

. A massacre, but not enough for the leader, who without getting up from the saddle, that is his absolute superiority, accelerated the pace and was left alone in half a dozen pedals in the middle of the ascent. No one was able to withstand its wake on the constant ramps of the Giau, always around 10% during the 10 kilometers of ascent.

It was then overtaking those who survived the break to reach Pedrero and take the head of the race. At that time, fog, rain and snow covering the ditches but not the road (two degrees at the top) prevented the RAI from continuing the live broadcast. The temporal references draw the outcome from then on.

Bernal crowned with about 45 seconds over Caruso

and reached the finish line 27 before the Italian and

Bardet

, which shows that the Colombian was cautious on the descent and the French took a risk. Each did what they had to do.

Vlasov and Yates

, who seemed to be the main rivals of the Ineos leader, were left for more than two minutes.

Now

Caruso is second

(at 2:24) and

Carthy third

(at 3:40), with the rest over four minutes.

On paper, there is still ground to bridge those differences, but that would require a faint from Bernal that no one contemplates.

It has been a long time since a Grand Tour had a leader as tyrannical as him.

With or without a queen stage, what this Giro undoubtedly has is an indisputable king.

And this Wednesday, together with his court and his vassals, he will finally rest before the final battles on the way to

Milan

.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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