Tour of Italy. Denz wins, Armirail in pink. Great calm

He did it again Nico Denz. This time to the last, of speed to the sprint, at the end of the 14th stage of the Giro d’Italia. No one had yet managed to win two stages at the Giro d’Italia 2023, he did it and no one calculated it. Hitting two escapes, two victories, it’s not for everyone, on the contrary. In Rivoli he had won with resistance and conviction, in Cassano Magnago with cunning and Zen. This is also needed. The escapes, especially when they are numerous, take on strange dynamics. What seems right at one point turns out to be rambling at the end. Davide Ballerini, Stefano Oldani, Laurenz Rex and Toms Skujiņš thought they had seized the right moment. It seemed so for a long time, it wasn’t so. They caught up with them at the climax, a few hundred meters from the finish line. It happens. Cycling is often a reshuffle, a redefinition of merit. The runners are governed by the order of arrival, whoever arrives first had reason on his side. You may or may not like it but that’s how it is.

Nico Denz won, this time impersonating the killjoy figure. Happens. After years of doing the dirty work, contributing to the chases, lining up the peloton to allow for sprints and recoveries from the peloton, it’s what he deserved. You have good legs, you ran intelligently, you knew how to take advantage of the opportunity. That’s good. Maybe because we like Denz music, “that even an alien learns it”, because that’s how it is when the Denz riders win, you need to go”where you dance / fuck it and dance / among the wreckage dance to stay afloat”, to sing it with Dargen D’Amico.

A lot of people danced today, all of them, perhaps because the rain has still stopped making it more difficult for the runners to walk. And there is nothing more annoying than bad weather when cycling. And it doesn’t matter that it’s not the fault of the Giro d’Italia, of cycling, of the runners and of all the rest. But getting soaked, feeling the cold leave your bones, covering kilometers that can contribute nothing to the general classification (a couple of runners in the group confirmed this), make even the most aware minds of the fatigue of being runners sick. Today was not the first day: down from the Sempione it was disgusting. The organization of the Giro can do nothing about it, it’s not his fault. The enthusiasts can do nothing about it, it’s not their fault. But it’s raining, and if you say government is a thief, you risk lawsuits, and then it helps great calmas our Enrico Veronese always writes, Sunday after Sunday commenting on Serie A.

AND great calm it really takes to understand that if Bruno Armirail wore the pink jersey it’s not an insult to the Giro, on the contrary, far from it. Now we need to get over it. If no one calculates it Bruno Armirail, What did he do? At most twenty-eighth at the Vuelta? Recovering the minute and forty-one is trivial, they think. It probably will.

But sometimes to observe the condemned in the pillory, one hopes that the executioner is not so loyal to the order. And that there may be an alternative ending, different from the one trivialized by the most. And that there is ultimately a justice for the brave. And then really calm. Because maybe the allez Armirails will be able to take effect, a completely vain hope, but who knows. Because Armirail is a tough guy, who doesn’t win, won’t win, but so be it. Allez Armirail. Cycling is full of lost causes. One more won’t hurt.

The order of arrival of the 14th stage of the Giro d’Italia 2023