Giro, finally show: Almeida wins on Bondone, Thomas back in pink, Roglic in trouble

MONTE BONDONE – “Sooner or later the Giro will explode” he said on the eve Geraint Thomasand indeed it was he, with Almeidato blow it up. The Welshman returns to the pink jersey, the Portuguese wins the stage of Bondone, the show this time is all: pure, absolute, among the strongest even for the stage victory. The loser of the first day full of pathos of the Giro is Primoz Roglic, beaten, but not yet eliminated from the fight for the squad. The Slovenian makes his team work for the whole stage but in the end he breaks away, gets towed by his teammate Kuss and in the end pays 25″. Now Thomas leads with 18″ on Almeida, Roglic is 29″. Caruso, detached in the stretch hard of the climb, 7th in the stage, he arrived at 1’16” and is now fourth at 2’50”. The fight, just born, is already restricted to the first three of the Bondone. Skipped the former general leader Bruno Armirailnow 7th at 3’22”.

The record

The escape goes away, as always, and this time there is also a dangerous man inside, Aurelien Paret-Peintre, 4 and a half minutes away from compatriot Armirail in the standings. To give him a hand in the fleeing group especially his brother Valentin. Primoz Roglic’s Jumbo-Visma does the work on the climbs continuously and compactly. There Ineos Thomas’s, meanwhile, loses Sivakov, withdrawn due to the beatings of the previous days. The superiority of the yellows is clear, also from a numerical point of view: 8 the Jumbos still in the race, 5 the Ineos. Only one other team is still fully staffed, Damiano Caruso’s Bahrain-Victorious. And speaking of teams, it’s really stripped down to the bare minimum Soudal-Quick Step: after Ballerini’s withdrawal, only Serry and Van Wilder remain in the running.

The group of forts has been altered considerably, at the beginning of the Bondone there are just about thirty of its members. On the run there is also healy, the new blue jersey of the gpm. The first to move are the Italian champion Filippo Zana and the Spaniard Carlos Verona. The Jumbo takes the Bondone climb head-on, the delay on the breakaway at 8 drops quickly: 3 minutes already at -18, and it’s Rohan Dennis to set the pace in the less steep sections, a specialist on the pace. The first to jump into the fort group is Lorenzo Fortunato, crashed in the early stages of the stage. Dennis arrives up to -15, when the delay in the breakaway of the pink jersey group is 1’35”. The Jumbo is taken over in the lead by Almeida’s UAE: Formolo, McNulty and Vine escort the Portuguese. At -10, the pink jersey Armirail, after a very tiring resistance The breakaway ends 8 from the finish and finally there is the first direct clash between the men in the standings.

Almeida’s attack, Roglic struggles

Accelerate Almeida, pay Caruso. The leading group is six: Roglic and Kuss (Jumbo), Thomas (Ineos), Dunbar and Zana (Jayco), Almeida (UAE). Caruso, with his partner Buitrago, travels 25″ from the leaders. Almeida’s reach at -6, decided, and Roglic decides to squeeze Kuss instead of going firsthand on the Portuguese. Roglic however at -4.5, right at the end of the hard stretch , gets into trouble following an acceleration by Thomas. The Welshman and Almeida go away, the Jumbo couple has to chase but he never sees the first two again. Almeida wins on Thomas, Roglic is 3rd at 25″, the Caruso group arrives at 1’16”. The Welshman is back in the squad: the last time, in the Cassano Magnago stage, he had decided to give it to Armirail. But from now on, he’s no longer joking and he’ll have to be especially careful of Almeida: “My first stage win at the Giro is a dream come true. I tried on the final climb, Thomas was good too. I really wanted to win and Geraint is an example for me”. Tomorrow a stage for sprinters in Caorle, then Val di Zoldo, Tre Cime di Lavaredo and the uphill time trial of Lussari.