This year's Giro has reached its sixth stage and hasn't practically started yet. Sooner or later it will turn on but so far it's just boring. Etna came too early for Quintana and Nibali to battle. Duel that now hopefully takes off on the Blockhaus, according to many the most grim mountain to climb in this Giro. In the pink amarcords there was even a Giro, that of 1954, which ended in the sixth stage, the Naples-L'Aquila. A bidone escape, staged by two supporters, killed the pink race with the group of Coppi, Koblet and Bartali (in his last Giro) detached with an abysmal delay of more than half an hour.
The Swiss Gianni Clerici beat his fellow adventurer Nino Assirelli in the sprint and wore the pink jersey that no one was able to undermine him. It was one of the ugliest Giros in memory, also marred by the sensational strike in the Bernina stage. What makes us remember the 1954 Giro is that once again in this edition the sixth stage sees the victory of a Swiss, Silvan Dillier, who, on the uphill finish line of Terme Luigiane, outsprinted his best-known breakaway companion, the Belgian Jasper Stuyven, fourth at the last Paris-Roubaix.
Third Lukas Postlberger at 12”, fourth Simone Andreetta at 26”. The four were part of the five-point breakaway with Pedersen – over 200 km in the lead – which characterized the stage and which the peloton was unable to catch up to, arriving regulated by Michael Woods 39” behind the winner. Dillier, 26 years old, if he doesn't have Clerici's good fortune to win a Giro, certainly took his first and most important victory of his career yesterday. Nothing changes in the standings with Bob Jungels for the third day in the pink jersey.
A record that the Luxembourger shouldn't miss in the two stages – today's in Alberobello and tomorrow's in Peschici – which precede the arrival on the Blockhaus: Jungels, between the 2016 Giro and the current one, has so far totaled six days in the pink jersey. But, given the subject's age and qualities, he has plenty of time to get close to the 20 days in pink of Charly Gaul, the most famous runner in the Principality, one of the strongest climbers of all time, hero of Bondone, winner of two Tours in 1956 and 1959.
