The Giro edition number 105 arrives in Italy after an intense and unprecedented 'three days', lived between Budapest, Visegrad, Kaposvar and Lake Balaton.
The invisible thread that connects Hungary - from where the teams flew to reach Catania's Fontanarossa airport - to Sicily risks turning into a kind of centrifuge capable of blending and reshaping ambitions, ambitions and projects.
Mathieu Van der Poel
has landed on the island with the pink jersey on, but the question that circulates in the caravan is only one: how many days the Dutchman, son and grandson (of the great Poulidor, ed), will be able to resist on the roof of the race organized by Rcs Sport?
The next question is even more immediate: will the flying Dutchman, a specialist in one-day races, be able to pass the hard test of Etna unscathed?
Yes, because, when the pink race gets back on track towards the Continent, it will have to face a very complicated 4th stage,
on a course of 172 kilometers, with an altitude difference of 3,500 meters and an arrival at 1,892 meters of the Sapienza refuge, which it is located at the foot of the summit walls of the highest volcano in Europe
.
Etna is the first crossroads for the big dreams of glory.
And it won't be a walk in the park.
The stage includes a final climb of 22.8 kilometers which, from 534 meters in Biancavilla (Catania), will lead the athletes to tackle a climb of 1,358 meters, up to the arrival of 1,892.
The average gradient is not prohibitive (5.9%), but it cannot be ruled out that the first ascent of a Giro with more than 50,000 meters of altitude difference remains in someone's legs.
Who knows this climb well is V
incenzo Nibali
, who has won two of Giri (2013 and 2016) who, together with his companion from Astana,
Miguel Angel Lopez
, can try to come up with something.
The same goes for
Simon Yates
: in 2018 the British, in the stage won by the Colombian
Esteban Chaves
(keep an eye on him too), wore the pink jersey for the first time.
And then there is
Tom Dumoulin
, winner of the 2017 Giro, who has always been used to defending himself uphill.
On the other hand, the one who started with ambitions of final victory is the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, who tomorrow will try to test his leg and project himself towards the short term future of this race still to be written and lived.
"It will be nice to leave in Italy with the pink jersey on - confessed Van der Poel, before moving from Hungary to Catania -. I enjoyed my days as a leader on the roads of Hungary and I will certainly continue to enjoy them on the Italian ones too. ".
A declaration of intent, or in any case a clear challenge, that of the Dutchman, who does not seem willing to abdicate.
His scepter of command belongs to him, but tomorrow's uphill finish will jeopardize an unexpected but certainly not accidental leadership.