Winners and disappointments from Giro week two: Vingegaard in control, Movistar falters

t may be an obvious place to start, but Jonas Vingegaard leaves the second week as the clear winner of the Giro so far.

The Dane claimed two stage victories during week two and now carries a commanding 2:26 lead in the general classification. His most emphatic statement came on the summit finish to Pila on stage 14, where Visma | Lease a Bike controlled the breakaway before setting up their leader perfectly for the final climb.

After strong work from Davide Piganzoli, Vingegaard delivered the decisive acceleration, underlining both his own condition and the strength of the team around him.

His stage 9 victory had already shown that he did not necessarily need to be at his absolute best to make the difference. Even then, he had enough to distance Felix Gall in the final kilometre and take another important win.

With a tougher third week still to come, Vingegaard now appears to have built the platform he wanted. The question is no longer whether he can defend pink, but how much more damage he wants to do before Rome.

Alec Segaert’s first Grand Tour stage victory in Novi Ligure was the kind of win that rewarded persistence, instinct and timing.

The Belgian launched from just over three kilometres out, catching the peloton at a moment of hesitation. With Visma | Lease a Bike setting a relatively controlled pace and no team willing to take full responsibility, Segaert sensed the opportunity and committed fully.

For those who followed his spring campaign, the move hardly came as a surprise. He had already gone close at Nokere Koerse, where Jasper Philipsen and the sprinters caught him inside the final few hundred metres. A day later, he converted that same attacking spirit into victory at the Grand Prix de Denain. At Gent-Wevelgem, too, a similar move almost paid off before Filippo Ganna helped bring him back.

This time, there was no late heartbreak. Segaert finished the job, and in doing so added another highlight to what has already been an excellent Giro for Bahrain Victorious, following Eulalio’s spell in the maglia rosa.

There is only one word that really fits Jhonatan Narváez’s Giro so far: outstanding.

Three stage victories already, two of them in the opening week, would have been enough to define a successful race for most riders. Yet Narváez added another display of class on stage 11, where he combined sharp tactical judgement with the strength to finish it off alone.

The Ecuadorian followed the right moves, avoided wasting energy when he did not need to, and then went clear with Mikkel Bjerg and Andreas Leknessund. When the road became short, steep and punishing, Narváez simply proved too strong, powering away to take a solo victory.

His race has not been limited to stage wins either. On stage 14, he made the breakaway again and picked up enough points to move into the maglia ciclamino. Few would have predicted that before the Giro. Fewer still would argue he has not earned it.

The Portuguese rider already featured among the winners of the first week, and fully deserves his place in the second week as well, given that he is still sitting on the podium in the general classification.

In the time trial, the lightweight Bahrain Victorious rider held his own impressively, finishing 41st and losing less than two minutes to Jonas Vingegaard.

The next major test came on stage 14 with the climb to Pila. As expected, Eulálio had to surrender the pink jersey to Vingegaard, but he still managed to defend second place overall. With the help of the evergreen Damiano Caruso, he finished 15th on the stage, limiting his losses to between one and two minutes against most of his podium rivals.

That says plenty about Eulálio’s resilience. Before this Giro, his best result in a stage race was fifth overall at this year’s AlUla Tour.

With a brutal third week still to come, it may not be realistic to expect Eulálio to hold on to his podium place all the way to Rome. Whatever happens from here, though, he has already won over plenty of cycling fans.

Ahead of the second week, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe will primarily have been thinking about improving their GC positions, and perhaps even about how they could challenge Jonas Vingegaard with their two leaders, Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari.

Illness, however, forced those plans onto the back burner. Both the Australian and the Italian were not feeling at their best and were therefore unable to get the maximum out of themselves. Even so, they managed to limit their losses and now sit fifth and sixth overall, with Hindley in fifth and Pellizzari in sixth. A podium place is certainly not out of reach.

For Pellizzari in particular, however, the question is how realistic that target is, as he was still complaining about illness symptoms on Saturday.

Another team that will have expected more from this Giro is Lidl-Trek. The squad arrived in Bulgaria with three main cards to play: Jonathan Milan, Giulio Ciccone and Derek Gee-West.

For Milan, this week offered an opportunity in Milan, but because the peloton failed to bring back the breakaway, the 25-year-old sprinter never got the chance to end his winless run. With Giulio Ciccone, the German-registered team had hoped for stage wins and possibly even a shot at the KOM jersey. Although the Italian has regularly been on the attack, he does not appear to have had the very best legs needed to make the difference.

In Gee-West, the team still has a top ten position, with the Canadian currently sitting ninth overall. But after his fourth place last year, it is understandable if they had hoped for more. So far, the Canadian has not looked like one of the very best climbers in the race, so if he wants to move up the GC in the third week, he will need to find another level.

“Clearly, his performance in this Giro has been a failure,” was the blunt assessment from Movistar boss Eusebio Unzué on Eric Mas this weekend.

For Movistar, the second week has become a frustrating mix of attacking intent and missed opportunities. Mas made it into the breakaway on Stage 11 after abandoning his GC ambitions, but failed to turn that situation into a result, spending too much time driving the move with the faster Jonathan Narváez able to sit in the wheel.

A day later, Movistar’s aggression again failed to translate into reward. The Spanish team worked hard on the climbs to put Orluis Aular in a strong position for the finish, but by the time the decisive move went clear, they no longer had enough riders left to close it down. In the end, sixth place was all the Venezuelan sprinter could salvage.

For all their intent, Movistar’s Giro has become a story of bold racing and opportunities slipping away