Giro d’Italia, escape in the rain: Armirail brings France back to the squad after 24 years. Stop in Denz which makes an encore

CASSANO MAGNAGO (Va) – Another escape, another victory for Nico Denz and a new pink jersey, the Frenchman Bruno Armirail, with the blessing of Geraint Thomas. No surprises, just tactics for Ineos, who prefer to “lend” the squad to Groupama-Fdj, waiting for the big mountains of the last week.

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Denz still on target

Denz took a liking to it: in Cassano Magnago, as in Rivoli, his was the winning idea after a day of rain and cold – what a novelty -, at the end of an action born on the Sempione Pass and continued along Lake Maggiore and the plains. 171 km of escape and an uncertain sprint, won with the thrill on the Canadian Derek Gee and Alberto Bettiol, 5th Ballerini. A large group of 29 attacked, then fragmented along the way. The good action seems to be that of Ballerini, Oldani, Rex and Skujins. But the four, who became three ai – 2, are reabsorbed by another group of 5 others. Oldani tries to launch the very long sprint, then Denz and the others come back. After years of seeing the others win, with 3 wins in four years, Denz has won twice in the last three days, straddling the stage of controversy in Crans Montana: before and after the signing was by the 29-year-old from Bora-Hansgrohe. Germany leads the classification “by nation” in terms of stage wins: 3, against 2 for Belgium, Italy, Denmark and Australia.

Change the squad: to a Frenchman after 24 years

The big group dozes off and takes a breather for a day. Thomas, psychologically weakened perhaps by the many days in the squad, with all that follows between press conferences and various delays, orders his players not to pull to “entrust” the shirt to the French Bruno Armirail. An action similar to the one set up by Evenepoel in Lake Laceno. Then the pink jersey ended up on the shoulders of the Norwegian Leknessund. Armirail, 15th at 53″ from Denz, started 23rd in the standings from Sierre with 18’37”, Thomas and the main group finished at over 21 minutes.

Armirail, 29 years old, born in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, in the Pyrenees, only one victory in his career, in the national time trial championship, now leads with 1’41” over Geraint Thomas, 1’43” over Roglic. “A huge surprise today” explains the new pink jersey, “no taking the pink jersey, it’s really incredible. I’m very happy. I only achieved it in the last kilometres, then I saw it on TV. Now we’ll have to recover from this tiring and very cold day”. Nothing strange, just tactics, cycling is full of stories like this. But now those scarce two minutes Thomas and the others will have to make up for. The last Frenchman in the squad was Laurent Jalabert in 1999. Armirail is the first of the new millennium.