No competition for pink at the Giro d'Italia 2024
Cycling is in an era of exceptional riders: Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar all have skills that have rarely been seen before in cycling. Direct duels between these riders are certainly among the highlights of the season - but if only one of them is on the start list, the outcome of the race quickly becomes predictable.
This development was already apparent due to van der Poel's dominance in the spring classics - and was now reinforced by Pogacar at the Giro d'Italia. The Tour of Italy ended on Sunday with the feeling that the main prize, the pink jersey, had been awarded virtually out of competition. On the one hand, because Pogacar was too dominant, and on the other, because there were no challengers. With his victory on stage 2 on the Sacro Monte di Oropa, the Slovenian was at the top of the overall standings.
As a racer, Pogacar is honoured that he did not manage this lead afterwards, but showed his class with five more stage wins. His overall performance was impressive, there is no doubt about that. At the same time, his dominance crushed the stage race. "We let Pog go and do his thing," said Geraint Thomas (Ineos), who later finished third, summarising the capitulation of the competition on stage 15. In the end, Pogacar's lead in the final classification was 9:56 minutes over the first chaser Daniel Martinez (Bora-hansgrohe), the biggest lead since 1965.
Cycling will have to live with such one-sided races in the future. That's the other side of the coin. For Pogacar, however, it was the hoped-for uncomplicated first Grand Tour victory on the way to the double of the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France.
Runaways set highlights at the Giro d'Italia 2024
While the battle for the overall victory was one-sided, a few breakaway riders in particular provided special stories with their victories. One of these was Benjamin Thomas' (Cofidis) one-day victory on stage 5 in Lucca. In modern cycling, it was virtually impossible for a breakaway group to keep the sprinters at bay at the start of a stage on a flat stage. However, the strong lead group around Thomas disproved this assumption. Because there was a lot of speculation in the peloton that day: at first, everyone was looking at Lidl-Trek and sprinter Jonathan Milan. By the time all the sprinter teams joined the chase, it was too late - the escape group saved eleven seconds to the finish.
Meanwhile, Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal - Quick-Step) delivered a comeback story. Behind the Frenchman lie two difficult years with injuries, setbacks and public tirades from his own team boss Patrick Lefevere. There were justified doubts as to whether the two-time world champion would ever return to his former level. In this Giro d'Italia, however, Alaphilippe showed himself to be as aggressive as in his best days, was regularly among the leading groups and finally won the 12th stage in Fano as a soloist. This was preceded by a 130 kilometre-long two-man breakaway with Mirco Maestri (Team Polti-Kometa).
It would be presumptuous to deduce from this that Alaphilippe can once again become a serial winner like he was before his momentous crash at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2022. On good days, however, he can still win important races. The 31-year-old has proven that impressively.
Steinhauser and Lipowitz: New German hopefuls
Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-Easypost) also scored a memorable success, taking the stage win on the 17th stage in spectacular fashion on the Passo Brocon. Steinhauser's escape group had already been caught before he attacked again and ultimately won the stage as a soloist. Three days earlier, he had already finished third as a breakaway rider at the mountain arrival in Livigno, and he also took the same position from a breakaway group on stage 19.
This made the 22-year-old Grand Tour debutant one of the most influential riders of the third week - a remarkable sign. "He's one of the best here. When you realise that, it's a huge boost," said Michael Valgren about his team-mate's high-flying performance. In the end, Steinhauser finished third in the mountain classification.
Florian Lipowitz (Bora-hansgrohe) also showed great promise for the future, having already caused a stir in preparation with third place at the Tour de Romandie. At the Giro, he was scheduled as Daniel Martinez's helper and finished fifth in the mountain finish of stage 2 at Sacro Monte di Oropa - Lipowitz rode a large part of the climb from the front. It would have been exciting to see what Lipowitz could have achieved on his Grand Tour debut. However, the 23-year-old was unable to compete in stage 6 due to illness. However, Lipowitz and Steinhauser have made a name for themselves in this Giro.
Tiberi and Co.: New Italian hopefuls
Anyone looking at the results lists at the Giro d'Italia in recent years would only find Damiano Caruso and Vincenzo Nibali, two riders in the autumn of their careers, at the top of the overall standings from an Italian perspective. Nibali has now ended his career, Caruso will retire at the end of the season. Accordingly, the question arose: Will Italy have any say at all in the overall standings in the future?
This year's Giro should have reassured the tifosi in this respect. The tour was the breakthrough as a classification rider for Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain - Victorious) in particular. The 22-year-old finished in fifth place, won the young rider classification and received compliments from Pogacar. "He showed balls, is strong and wants to attack," said the Slovenian about Tiberi, who was one of the few riders to attack the Slovenian on the mountain finish at Bocca della Selva - albeit unsuccessfully.
In eleventh place, 25-year-old Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) only just missed out on the top ten, followed directly behind by two more Italians, Lorenzo Fortunato (Astana) and Davide Piganzoli (Team Polti-Kometa) - the latter in particular made a remarkable Grand Tour debut at the age of 21. Although it is true that the density of classification riders at this Giro was not particularly high, Italy still has new hopefuls in sight.
Field of riders sets the tone at the Giro d'Italia 2024
There was no questioning the correctness of the decision: With snowfall and temperatures close to freezing, it would have been irresponsible to send the riders into the high mountains after the start of the 16th stage in Livigno. However, cycling once again publicly did itself no favours with this decision. This was mainly due to Giro organiser RCS, who resisted changing the route for a long time.
Due to existing contracts with the start and finish locations, this was in part even understandable, but not communicated transparently. Once again, the race organiser made an unfortunate appearance, even shortly before the start of the stage nobody knew what was going to happen. The absurd highlight was the proposal to set up a three-minute changeover break at the summit of the 2500 metre high Umbrail Pass.
However, the drivers were remarkably united, refusing to start in these conditions. Such unity among the drivers was rare in the past. This development can be attributed in part to Adam Hansen, the new president of the drivers' union CPA since 2023. With him, the riders' interests have been given a much stronger voice - which was also evident at the Giro. RCS finally relented and postponed the start of the stage to the valley.
The riders have set a precedent at the Giro. However, this should be viewed with caution. Because even the riders must not have the power to decide on race starts in future. An independent third party is needed to mediate between the interest groups and ultimately make the decision. The UCI is called upon to act in this respect.
Track specialists cause a stir at the Giro d'Italia 2024
The shooting stars of the past few years have come from cyclo-cross with Mathieu van der Poel, Wout Van Aert and Tom Pidcock. At this Giro d'Italia, however, it was mainly track specialists who left their mark on the tour. Among others, Benjamin Thomas and Filippo Ganna (Ineos, in the individual time trial), two multiple track world champions, each won a stage, but Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) recorded the most impressive result.
With three stage wins at this Giro, the 23-year-old has finally joined the circle of world-class sprinters. With his ability to put in a powerful and long sprint, Milan is somewhat reminiscent of Marcel Kittel. If Milan has a clear path, he is therefore very difficult to beat. While other sprinters need a leadout up to 100 metres before the finish, Milan can also sprint from 250 metres - and hardly loses any speed in the process.
He has since been nicknamed the "Bull of Buja". Meanwhile, his power comes from the track: he won gold in the team pursuit at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo and also the World Championship title in the same year - both with Ganna and team-mate Simone Consonni, who led him in the sprints at the Giro. Milan is not expected to take part in the Tour de France this year. However, Lidl-Trek is unlikely to be able to deny the powerful Italian a Tour start from next season at the latest.
