In our intimate notebook today is “THE” stage of the Giro. Meanwhile and above all because we arrive on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the most iconic mountain of this edition and one of the most important ever in the history of cycling. Here, a divine director would ensure that the pink jersey, the definitive one, is decided on the summit where Eddy Merckx signed his most spectacular uphill success, up there where Vincenzo Nibali threw his fist at the sky which was there, full of snow above his head. The Shark won in the pink jersey putting the sealing wax on his 2013 Giro and that heroic image of Vincenzo alone in the whitewashed storm is the basis of his legend.
effort to the limit
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For us there is also Felice Gimondi, who won in 1967, when Vincenzo Torriani made the Tre Cime di Lavaredo debut in the pink race. It matters little to us that the jury canceled the stage for the purposes of the classification because the public, unleashed by the fatigue of the riders, pushed everyone. Felice finished ahead of the very young Eddy Merckx and eventually won the first of his three Giri d’Italia. On the climb Gimondi, Merckx and Nibali will face each other today the protagonists of a Giro that has been too stingy with emotions.
Thomas as Balmamion
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On Bondone, thanks to the courage of Joao Almeida, and yesterday in Val di Zoldo, thanks to the pride of Primoz Roglic, the race got on. Geraint Thomas is always in the pink jersey, the Welshman whose mission is to always stay close to the strongest opponent. And since the strongest is not always the same, he finds himself in front of everyone with the sure, regular and economical step of an old diesel. Until now, more than Gimondi, Merckx and Nibali, this Thomas looks more like Franco Balmamion, who sixty years ago won two consecutive pink jerseys (1962 and ’63) without winning a single stage. Now we know that Thomas is a class athlete. Olympian and world champion on the track and yellow jersey of the 2018 Tour, the Welshman has the engine and the gear to live up to the giants. He just has to decide whether to jump from one wheel to another, always staying in the wake or if the time has come, and the Tre Cime would be the best stage ever, to close the games with a gesture like a true champion. The lighthouse of the race is now him.
roglic and almeida, no calculations
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But the strong man could still prove to be Primoz Roglic, who yesterday completely recovered from the bottle of Bondone. Or it could be Joao Almeida, who yesterday paid the toll of a day of crisis. Roglic and Almeida can’t make calculations and wait for the Monte Lussari uphill time trial. If they still have a penny on their heads, they must spend it today. We hope that one of the duelists Thomas and Roglic, or Almeida, looks at the Tre Cime with the eyes and spirit of a true champion and finally finds the inspiration to form one of those companies that leave their mark and become a memory. The mountain of Gimondi, Merckx and Nibali deserves a quiver of wings, a shot that ennobles the Giro and whoever wins it.
