We often use cycling as a metaphor for life (vote 0 to rhetoric), for never more than this year the circumstances have shown us that it is true: the Giro d’Italia was our technical test of coexistence with the virus and fear, and the challenge was won. Vote 10, immediately, without turning too much around, to whoever led the ship in the storm straight into port, the director Mauro Vegni: dramatizing the right, never over the top (not in the face of the disappearance of the fearful Jumbo Visma or the letter with which Ef asked for the race to stop after two weeks and not even in front of the stolid strike of runners after the Stelvio: without vote), prevented the bubble from bursting (4 cyclists out of 176 positive) by spreading over 5,000 rapid and molecular anti-Covid tests, along 23 days of competition. A format to imitate.
Thanks to the discipline and respect for the rules of all of us, therefore, the 2020 Giro (vote 10 and praise) was beautiful and intrepid, generous and steep with thorns that have no point, full of little stories in the haversack to tell. That of a tall man from Vignone capable of opening and closing the race with a winning time trial, for example: back from gold at the World Championship in Imola, Filippo Ganna (vote 11) did trio of chrono (Palermo, Valdobbiadene, Milan) and invented the escape among the wolves of the Sila, and then pounced on a sensational slice of pizza in Piazza Duomo, just reward for his efforts. Pippo’s Ineos, very skilled in replacing Froome, the winning ace of this Giro: 6 stages, the discovery of Rohan Dennis as a climber, the white and pink shirts on the skinny shoulders of an Englishwoman with a Gaelic name, red hair, love for Arsenal and the swimming crossings of the English Channel: Tao Geoghegan Hart, 25 years old, the giamburrasca who overturned the predictions (rating 9.5 only because on Sunday he did not explain the meaning of the circle tattoo on his left arm), dragging in the revolutionary trail of new wave the friend Jai Hindley, excellent second (vote 9) and brother knife of that Wilco Kelderman (vote 5 for having endorsed the Morbegno revolt by the pink jersey) of which he got tired of being a follower on the Stelvio.
From celebrating Sicily to cyanotic Milan in full pandemic, we climbed Mount Etna, started again from the enchantment of the Sassi di Matera, we entered the straight at 80 km per hour with Arnaud Dmare, sprint poker and cyclamen jersey (vote 4 a Elia Viviani, never arrived), we cried with Alex Dowsett in Vieste (he has a family but no contract for next year), we shouted for the rock star Peter Sagan (only one sprint at the first Giro, in Tortoreto, but with what class) and we palpitated for Vincenzo Nibali (vote 6 of esteem), the old Shark torn to pieces by young piranhas.
Pogacar at the Tour, van Aert at Sanremo, van der Poel at Liège, Evanepoel in ambush, our Tao now adopted by Italy. Cycling is not a country for old people, but once again the transversal message arrives loud and clear: against all gloomy appearances, in the middle of the second wave of coronavirus, the future is already here. And the Portuguese Joao Almeida (vote 8), on a mission on behalf of CR7, leader for 15 days, was not a pink jersey of circumstance: the final fourth place at 22 proves it.
In the midst of so much wealth, but with the protagonists in the bubble and therefore not approachable, alone Alessandra De Stefano (vote 10) could lead the Process to the Stage. The women in the Giro are always too few, but often good.
25 October 2020 (change October 25, 2020 | 23:15)
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