Van der Poel leads rushed generation to victory at Giro d'Italia

The Giro d'Italia takes place in Hungary.

In the forest on its slopes, lying down like archers from Robin Hood, the fans wait in ambush, who don't scream until they have the basting platoon in sight.

The cyclists rush up the castle hill as if fearing an attack from the damp trees that hide no evil.

They call it the pandemic generation, and perhaps for this reason it is, in truth, the accelerated generation.

The end of the world is approaching, they read, and his prince, Mathieu van der Poel, instead of kneeling in penance and repenting for his still unpunished arrogance, accelerates and accumulates.

A history is made in nothing.

What the grandfather Poulidor did not achieve in 19 years of long career, from 23 to 41, the Dutch grandson achieves in 10 minutes.

A yellow jersey and a pink jersey.

And behind him, another in a hurry, another predestined, punctual for his appointment, Biniam Girmay, one with a pending appointment with history, and with an entire continent, and with an entire continent, who launches himself and overtakes Pello Bilbao, all the spark of Itzulia and the Alps still in the legs of the runner from Gernika, fresh in his head the memory, and the morale, of the sprint that beat Alaphilippe,

He debuts at the Tour Van der Poel, last summer, and on the second day he sees a hill in Brittany and pulls up a banner, speeds up and, wham, a yellow jersey, and its brightness matches perfectly with that of his bright eyes and happy on the podium, their smile so clear, almost childish;

10 months later, he makes his debut in the Giro, on the first day he circles the great curve of the slow Danube, which, on its endless path from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, turns suddenly, frightened by an old volcano that the teeth are already worn out, and heads south, where Budapest awaits.

In the middle of the curve, to his right, the cyclist, Van der Poel, sees the castle of Visegrád on top of a hill, and next to him a banner, he waits for the right time while others allow him to measure the seconds, the distance, the effort, speed up and, wham!, a pink jersey that you wear happily,

almost as happy as the yellow of the Tour, but without the emotion in the eyes: the memory of the grandfather does not reach the Giro.

“And I am much calmer, relaxed, relaxed, without the emotional charge”, says the winner, and on his olive green jersey he wears pink, and he has crossed the finish line without even lifting his arms from the handlebars, without raising his head that sinks between the shoulders in full effort when in the Tour he raised an arm towards the sky, and shed a tear.

“In the Tour he was much more nervous.

There he was celebrating a family history;

here, one more objective”.

and he has crossed the finish line without even lifting his arms from the handlebars, without raising his head that he sinks between his shoulders in full effort when in the Tour he raised an arm towards the sky, and shed a tear.

“In the Tour he was much more nervous.

There he was celebrating a family history;

here, one more objective”.

and he has crossed the finish line without even lifting his arms from the handlebars, without raising his head that he sinks between his shoulders in full effort when in the Tour he raised an arm towards the sky, and shed a tear.

“In the Tour he was much more nervous.

There he was celebrating a family history;

here, one more objective”.

Five minutes invested in each piece that flank the jewel in the crown in its showcase, for now, the victory in the last Tour of Flanders against Pogacar.

Not even inspired Merckx had the capacity, the haste, for the phenomenon;

nor his father, Adrie van der Poel, who only as a very veteran began to raise his arms in important races.

“Now”, says Van der Poel, Jr., who is 27 years old and has several seasons of cyclocross behind him, but on the road he is still a beardless four-year-old.

“Everything is very nice, but running to tackle, like I run, has a price”.

The apparent price is paid with one of the four bottles of prosecco that he has to open on the podium, one for the stage victory, another for the pink jersey, another for the mountain azzurra and a fourth for the points cyclamen. .

The cap of the first pops off, as he himself jumps in sprints, wham!, with the bottle still on the ground and hits him in the eye, which rubs and sheds a tear.

The real price of running like this,

"The pink jersey, surely I won't last for more days," admits Van der Poel.

“In the time trial of Budapest [nine kilometers of wandering between Pest and Buda, and a climb to another castle, for a slope of more than a kilometer at 14%, a real cinder block wall] I will pass the pink to my friend Dumoulin ”.

Surely Pello Bilbao thinks differently that, despite his lightness, he is not bad at all in the matter of time trials, and that, thanks to the bonus and a cut of four seconds, he is eight ahead of Dumoulin and others who are said to They are going for the final victory: Bardet, Yates, Landa, Almeida... Only the most favorite of all, Carapaz, gets rid of the four-second cut: an announcement of what is to come, a confirmation that his Ineos takes the I turn very seriously.

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