Tour of Italy. Ackermann’s smile wins in Tortona. An inch was missing from Milan’s crazy comeback

Can the runner-up in a sprint impress more than the sprint winner? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, no. But today is that time in a hundred. Because Pascal Ackermann in Tortona put everyone behind in a tight and uncertain sprint, the one that closed the 11th stage of the Giro d’Italia, the Camaiore-Tortona, 219 km. Because it wasn’t easy for the German to overtake Mark Cavendish in a great comeback on a Mads Pedersen who had run out of acceleration a little too early. A great sprint for Pascal Ackermann, a victory he had been looking for for a long time, which he seemed to have lost. It’s never easy to go from being one of the strongest, and mostly fast-rising, sprinters in the world to always ending up with a few wheels, sometimes several, ahead of him. He never fretted too much about this, he continued to smile, because, he said, “after all, there are much worse things than finishing in a sprint”.

Ackermann won, Jonathan Milan came very close and in such an unexpected way that it is almost unbelievable. Because four hundred meters from the finish, the Friulian from Bahrain-Victorious was a long way behind, so far from the leaders that if he had finished in the top five it would have already been something exceptional. Jonathan Milan got up on the pedals, started moving in his own way, dangling and very quickly. He began to pass runners after runners, all people who weren’t there for a walk, but who gave everything they had to give. It came very close to Pascal Ackermann’s front wheel. So close that for a few moments it was not clear who had won despite the exultation of the German sprinter. There have been few such comebacks in cycling. Comebacks like that are worth a lot: the awareness of being a sprinter of excellent quality. Such comebacks are worth nothing: the rolls of honor are full of winners and empty of runners-up. We’ll get over it, we’ll keep the memory.

The Camaiore-Tortona will certainly remember Tao Geoghegan Hart. And they won’t be good memories. The Englishman fell on the descent of the Colla di Boasi. Together with him others, from Alessandro Covi, the first to slip, to Primoz Roglic, up to Geraint Thomas, the pink jersey: gravity does not look anyone in the face, let alone two like Roglic and Thomas who have had too much with the asphalt to do. Tao Geoghegan Hart didn’t get back up like his rivals did. He left by ambulance, he had to abandon the Giro d’Italia. And it’s a great shame, because he was going strong, because he found himself after two difficult years. This Giro is increasingly an elimination race that witnesses the greetings of the protagonists who should have made it exciting.

Also for Óscar Rodríguez the descent of the Colla di Boasi was the last of this Giro. The Spaniard first encountered a road sign and then the wall of a house after a front wheel-rear wheel contact with a Trek rider while he was in the front position of the group to try to catch the fugitives Thomas Champion, Filippo Magli, Alexander Konichev Diego Pablo Sevilla, Veljko Stojnic and Laurenz Rex.

It should have been a smooth chase, it wasn’t like that today either. Because Laurenz Rex has set his sights on trying to ruin the sprinters’ plans. He made the followers who tried to grab him suffer, pedaling for long stretches at their own speed, him alone against many. Lots of Laurez Rex stuff.

The order of arrival of the 11th stage of the Giro d’Italia 2023