Tour of Italy. Davide Bais and the cheeky optimism

We had to be quite optimistic to think that we could reach the finish line before the group when there are only four of us and we have 212 kilometers and over four thousand meters in altitude in front of our noses. There is often little difference between cheeky optimism and hallucination, yet if you are a runner and you are at the Giro d’Italia with the aim of entering as many breakaways as possible, hoping that at least one manages not to be swallowed up from the group, that’s what makes you move your legs can only be, at least, a large dose of realism of a positive matrix. With hope and that’s it, you usually don’t go very far. Davide Bais, Simone Petilli, Karel Vacek and Henok Mulubrhan had plenty today. Especially the first three when Henok Mulubrhan got lost along the way. They became inspired by the Apennines, they pedaled uphill and downhill, under the sun (not much to say the truth) and under the rain, with the wind in favor and against, above all with good will and by mutual agreement up to three hundred meters from the finish. There Simone Petilli tried to detach the others before the others detached him. Davide Bais won the eighth stage of the Giro d’Italia atop Campo Imperatore, below the summit of the Gran Sasso d’Italia, ahead of Karel Vacek. The bold optimism paid off. Also because today the group preferred to move compact and serene, they chose the calm that had already taken too much storm towards Salerno and in the first hundred kilometers of today’s fraction.

The first stage which included an uphill finish of the Giro d’Italia proved to be inconclusive, it said nothing about the conditions of the riders who say they are interested in the pink jersey. But it’s not true that he didn’t say anything, he actually said something: Remco Evenepoel is right to speak up, to say that Primoz Roglic seems agitated to him and that he is fine instead. Everyone believed him to such an extent that no one even dreamed of questioning his version of events even in the slightest. Had this happened to Eddy Merckx, the Belgian would probably have won a thousand races and not “just” 445. It is true that there are two weeks left before the finish line in Rome, it is true that there are a lot of climbs planned, but if Remco continues to talk and the others, listening to him, we’ll end up counting the days until the start of the next Tour de France and allowing ourselves to quickly fall in love with the avant-gardists of the day, something we already know how to do very well.

Davide Bais is a great runner, one with heart, one who is not afraid to risk going crazy, because he is perfectly aware that in the group there are many who are faster than him, who have more sprint than him, than uphill they are more skilled than him. Davide Bais knows this and runs away from them as soon as he can. Cycling is the only sport in which escaping is an act of courage and Davide Bais has always shown that he has plenty of it. He cycled thousands and thousands of kilometers with the peloton at his heels. This victory makes up for all the other times gone wrong. Tomorrow he will cover his Eolo-Kometa jersey with the blue one of the best climber. Another prize for perseverance.

“I went on the breakaway to score some points and support our captain Fortunato, then the race started differently. So I tried to manage my energies, conserve my strength and in the end we gave it up: I still have to realize what happened”. Davide Bais also has the gift of frankness.

Sometimes what’s hardest in cycling is because certain things happen. Because between what could, should, happen and what happens there are perhaps tens of thousands of kilometres. Yet usually the explanation, said Fiorenzo Magni, can be condensed into three characteristics: abnegation, obstinacy, imagination. Bais lacks none. On the contrary.

Karel Vacek today perhaps found the way to resume the path that he seemed to be able to take in cycling. “I haven’t smelled the fight for victory for four years,” he said after the finish. He knows what he’s talking about: among the Juniors he promised to be an excellent rider. “Today I gave everything I could. I don’t know what to say: I still can’t figure out what happened. Last year I wanted to stop racing by bike: after all these sacrifices I believed in it. I was also called at the last minute to do the Giro, so this is a feat for me”. A speech similar to that of Simone Petilli. For a few years the possibility that he could become a very high-ranking rider was taken for granted, then things went slightly differently. However, his has always done it and done it well. Confirm with all the captains and sports directors he has had. Victory will come. You just need to have the patience and optimism to wait for it.

The order of arrival of the 8th stage of the Giro d’Italia 2023