Landa makes a small and fleeting gap over Carapaz and Hindley on the ascent to the Sanctuary of Castelmonte. LUCA BETTINI (AFP)
The Friuli, a bland plain and the Tagliamento, a river of stones, as wide as 30 football fields, in which the Cossack cavalry helps the SS to fight the partisans with terror, and, on a hill, the Castelmonte, between forests, a sanctuary with a black virgin to which they ascend, before the cyclists, seven kilometers, residents of Cividale praying the rosary along the steep road, marked out every 500 meters with a little chapel and a scene of the Passion, and the cyclists of a They spend the day gasping, looking for the strips of shade under the scorching sun, and their rapid breathing in great gasps is louder than the wheezing turn of the wheels, a fat spectator, lying down, shouts at them, come on, there's not much left, and there's still , at least five kilometers, and to whom he reproaches him for why he is lying, he replies, sadly,that the world is made of false hopes, and does not seem like Friuli, where the extraordinary is born from monotony, from false landscape, Fazioli's fabulous pianos made in an anonymous industrial estate between carpentry shops and furniture factories, Pasolini's rich poems in Friulian in his best youth, and Ottavio Bottecchia, born of hunger who, instead of emigrating like his countrymen who took a copy of the black virgin to Buenos Aires, became a bricklayer and then a cyclist, and was the first Italian to win the Tour, and twice, in the 1920s, and real cyclists, those who make cycling their lives, have Newton's first law, the fundamental law of cycling drawn up by Peter Winnen, a better writer than a cyclist, nailed to their cerebellum, and he won twice times on the Alpe d'Huez: patience, patience, patience, madness, that they,the trio Carapaz, Hindley, Landa, between childlike feints with important faces, performs in their own way, patience, patience, patience,
domani
.
Fotofinish again
in the top three.
Victory for Koen Bouwman,
king of the mountain
azzurra jersey , second victory after Potenza, full of the Dutch blond.
Not far away, Valverde, the old man, cradles Juanpe, the young man, who has been left a little cut, and helps him keep the
white jersey.
Saronni, in a Giro, was asked every day when you will attack.
And he answered, the Giro is long, the Giro is long, there are still many important stages to come.
Last Sunday, and he still hadn't attacked, Saronni promised, next year will be another story.
The Turn of False Hopes has one tomorrow left to attack, Saturday's Marmolada, and one tomorrow to pray, the Verona time trial, and Landa accelerates two kilometers from the sanctuary after a long relay from Carapaz had isolated the three usual, and he does it, for once, with his hands on the handlebars, and, as always, a sign of little confidence, he looks back immediately, when the motorcycle in front of him speeds up, and for once, and he doesn't believe it , it seems that it has made a hole, and that it is going, it is going... The false hope,
fueled by the false presence of Bora in the lead during the ascent, on the line with Slovenia, so far to the east is Friuli, from the very tough Kolovrat, it lasts five seconds, the time it takes Carapaz to get back on his wheel with Hindley.
"And I don't know if I made the hole because of my legs or because the other two controlled themselves," admits Landa realistically.
"But I'm still optimistic."
And its director, Alberto Volpi, specifies: "We will see what can be done on the last climb."
Hindley more candidly admits his depression.
"Just nothing turned out the way we expected," he says.
“Today wasn't a good day to blow up the race either.
Gaining a little time in the marmolada would be ideal to finish last in the time trial, of course.
It will be difficult, but we will achieve it”.
the time it takes for Carapaz to get back on track with Hindley.
"And I don't know if I made the hole because of my legs or because the other two controlled themselves," admits Landa realistically.
"But I'm still optimistic."
And its director, Alberto Volpi, specifies: "We will see what can be done on the last climb."
Hindley more candidly admits his depression.
"Just nothing turned out the way we expected," he says.
“Today wasn't a good day to blow up the race either.
Gaining a little time in the marmolada would be ideal to finish last in the time trial, of course.
It will be difficult, but we will achieve it”.
the time it takes for Carapaz to get back on track with Hindley.
"And I don't know if I made the hole because of my legs or because the other two controlled themselves," admits Landa realistically.
"But I'm still optimistic."
And its director, Alberto Volpi, specifies: "We will see what can be done on the last climb."
Hindley more candidly admits his depression.
"Just nothing turned out the way we expected," he says.
“Today wasn't a good day to blow up the race either.
Gaining a little time in the marmolada would be ideal to finish last in the time trial, of course.
It will be difficult, but we will achieve it”.
admits his depression.
“Just nothing turned out the way we expected,” she says.
“Today wasn't a good day to blow up the race either.
Gaining a little time in the marmolada would be ideal to finish last in the time trial, of course.
It will be difficult, but we will achieve it”.
admits his depression.
“Just nothing turned out the way we expected,” she says.
“Today wasn't a good day to blow up the race either.
Gaining a little time in the marmolada would be ideal to finish last in the time trial, of course.
It will be difficult, but we will achieve it”.
The great Dolomites remain, the only two passes of the Giro Menor above 2,000m, when the hills are already mountains, and the Andean climbers, Carapaz, of course, enjoy it due to the low force of oxygen to reach the blood, the Pordoi (2,239m), and La Marmolada (2,057m), of course, the four syllables that evoke cycling that the fans like, a criminal straight, sad fainting, and announce rain, hail, seven degrees at Cima Coppi, nine in Malga Ciapella.
They will leave from Belluno, the town of Dino Buzzati, who wrote two books about the Giro, a collection of chronicles by Coppi against Bartali in 1949 and a novel,
The Desert of the Tartars,
the story of an invasion, of an attack, that never comes.
"And it doesn't matter so much that there are no attacks," says Carapaz, comfortable in pink ahead of Hindley, who owes his disadvantage of only 3s to the 21 bonuses achieved to offset the 14s achieved in installments by the Ecuadorian plus the 8s that he received. he took off in Budapest in the time trial and the 4s obtained in the only climb in which he broke away from the tenacious Australian in the entire Giro, 8s achieved in the time trial.
It happened so long ago that hardly anyone remembers it, in the first stage, on the fourth grade slope to Visegrád Castle, 335 meters high, where the great bend of the Danube, where, perhaps, if the Marmolada does not prevent it, was summed up the entire Giro in three names: Van der Poel won ahead of Girmay, and Carapaz was sixth.
"Three seconds is three seconds," he says.
“It would not be bad to reach the time trial with these three seconds, but, in any case, I would think that we will not reach Verona with this equality.
I don't know why, but I don't think so."
And she smiles and winks.
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