Vingegaard’s Giro stays in energy-saving mode despite Gall defiance

We have grown increasingly accustomed to races within races in the 2020s. The very best riders – galacticos, aliens, call them what you will – are so superior these days that the rest of the peloton tends to leave them to it.

Nobody laid a glove on Tadej Pogačar when he dominated the Giro d’Italia two years ago. In fact, nobody even really bothered to make a fist. On the opening weekend, Jhonatan Narváez and (briefly) Ben O’Connor had the gall to follow him, but over the next three weeks, the Giro gruppo eventually stopped pretending that they were even in the same race as Pogačar. 

On summit finishes, the racing between the podium contenders would only truly begin once Pogačar had already bounded clear in search of another stage win in a Giro that had long since descended into a very public training camp for the Tour de France.

This time out, Jonas Vingegaard is the man in the Pogačar role. He is the only one of the peloton’s very top tier of riders at this Giro, and the expectation beforehand was that he would dominate from gun to tape in the manner of his great rival in 2024.

Nine days in, Vingegaard is, to nobody’s surprise, the best rider in the race, but he hasn’t yet bludgeoned the opposition into immediate submission as Pogačar did two years ago. Back then, the Slovenian tried to win the opening stage in Turin in a bid to wear pink for three whole weeks, and he even attempted to upset the sprinters by attacking in the finale at Fossano on stage 3 seemingly for the sheer hell of it. 

Not all aliens are created equal, and Vingegaard has meted out his efforts very differently so far on this Giro. When he attacked on the opening weekend on the Lyaskovets Monastery climb, for instance, his end goal was engineering a safer descent for himself rather than stage victory in Veliko Tarnovo. 

When Movistar surprisingly took up the reins on the climb of Cozzo Tunno on stage 4, Vingegaard didn’t see it as a challenge to his hegemony but as an opportunity to spare the legs of his Visma | Lease a Bike guard. 

And when Vingegaard finally unleashed his first true onslaught at the Blockhaus on Friday, he did so in measured fashion, waiting to strike until the final 5.5km of the ascent. The aim, it seems, was to gain the maximum time with the minimum effort. 

That mission was accomplished, given that he gained more than a minute on the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe duo of Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari, though the picture was clouded slightly by the strong showing of Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM), who limited his losses to just 13 seconds.

That performance begged two questions: was this a diminished version of Vingegaard and, if so, could Gall challenge him for the pink jersey? Speaking to Domestique and L’Équipe in Chieti on Saturday, Gall didn’t seem convinced on either count, suggesting that the Blockhaus had been the best performance of his career and reiterating that a podium finish was the summit of his ambition here.

And yet, on stage 9 to Corno alle Scale, his Decathlon CMA CGM team advertised his intentions by setting the tempo at the head of the peloton as the category 1 climb drew near, doing enough to doom the early break and ensure Gall would be in contention for victory.

As the race approached the steepest portion of the climb, meanwhile, Gall did something increasingly rare in contemporary cycling. By attacking with 3.5 km to go, he deigned to take on one of the sport’s galacticos in a head-to-head contest. 

It’s hard to imagine anybody daring to make a show of defiance quite like this against Pogacar, but it’s easy to imagine how he would respond. It probably wouldn’t involve sticking like a limpet to Gall’s wheel for the next 1,500 metres, but every rider is different and so is every race.

Vingegaard’s initial passivity here will be interpreted by some as a further sign that the Dane is no longer operating at anything like the same exalted level as Pogacar, so dominant over the past two and a half years. Those who distil everything in cycling to a question of watts/kg will doubtless find ample proof here that Vingegaard simply cannot, surely cannot, beat Pogačar at the Tour in July.

That may or may not be the case, but that was hardly the point here. Vingegaard, as if we didn’t know it by now, is operating in energy-saver mode on this Giro. The aim is to win the race without burning up his reserves for the Tour in July, no more and no less.

Just beneath the flamme rouge, Vingegaard had seen enough of Gall’s forcing to understand he had his number. He lifted himself from the saddle and pressed clear, immediately opening a gap that he would maintain to the finish, gaining another 12 seconds – plus bonuses – on the Austrian, who now trails him by 35 seconds on GC.

Like at the Blockhaus, Gall’s defiant showing masked the level of Vingegaard’s dominance over everybody else. Hindley lost another 50 seconds and Pellizzari shipped another 1:28. Vingegaard doesn’t have the pink jersey just yet, but Gall is now the only recognised podium contender within two minutes of him as the Giro breaks for its first rest day.

There has been no early knockout blow like the ones Pogačar delivered two years ago, but Vingegaard has still been working the scorecard when he can, deftly stepping in to produce winning combinations without ever running the risk of punching himself out. The 42km time trial to Massa on Tuesday presents him with a clear chance to stretch his advantage over Gall and perhaps even take the pink jersey from the shoulders of Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious), who currently leads him by 2:24.

Beyond the finish at Corno alle Scale, meanwhile, Gall expressed satisfaction with his day’s work. His defiant attack here was less about troubling Vingegaard than it was about distancing men like Hindley, Ben O’Connor and Thymen Arensman. “I wanted to make sure it was a really hard final for everybody and try myself,” he said. “I was only beaten by Jonas, so I think it’s ok.”

Thanks to Gall, Vingegaard isn’t yet in a race of his own at this Giro, but maybe that suits his own agenda too. Decathlon CMA CGM’s efforts to control the peloton didn’t go unnoticed – or unappreciated – when Vingegaard sat down in the press conference truck at the summit.

“Today we wanted to be a bit more defensive. We’re already one man down in the race, we spent a lot of energy on the Blockhaus stage,” he said. “I think we can call it a good day for us.”

Vingegaard is doing just enough at this Giro, and it’s already plenty.