“Yes, I can! I don't see the big names stronger than me". You would never have expected such a phrase from a thirty-one-year-old cyclist, therefore no longer very young, with a rather meager palmarès behind him: three victories (a stage at the Vuelta and the Tour of California as well as the Canadian time trial championship) and only one placing among the top ten in major stage races (seventh place at the 2010 Tour).
Yet after what happened in Wednesday's big stage in Cortina, the Canadian Ryder Hesjedal – who before conquering the pink jersey at Rocca di Cambio was almost unknown to most, so much so that he had to specify to the suiveurs that his surname began with an acca – is become a nightmare for Rodriguez, for Basso and for those who still think of winning the Giro: an unexpected adversary, surprising on the Giau, safe on the descent, to be eliminated in the last two stages of great mountains, between tomorrow and Saturday, on the very tough slopes of Pampeago, Mortirolo and Stelvio, where the altitude takes away oxygen and multiplies the effort.
Today the standings didn't move: there was a completely quiet stage in the program, in which the big names caught their breath, leaving the stage to the sprinters. The winner, beating none other than his majesty Mark Cavendish, was Andrea Guardini, last in the standings more than 4 hours behind Rodriguez, the black jersey beating the rainbow one, a beautiful fairy tale that took place at the finish line in Vedelago, a stone's throw from Treviso. With three days to go, Hesjedal is still 30” behind Rodriguez while he has an advantage of 52” over the third who is Ivan Basso and 1'06” over Michele Scarponi. Uran and Pozzovivo, who are expected to test again on Alpe di Pampeago tomorrow, are even more distant.
The fight, never so open, for the final victory therefore seems to be restricted to the first four, enclosed in one minute and 36 seconds. But if Hesjedal isn't detached by at least two-three minutes from the Rodriguez, Basso and Scarponi trio in the two terrible stages that await the Giro before Sunday, the Milan time trial, which is usually a triumphal catwalk for those who have won the Giro already won on the mountains, it could become a joke for the big three and an apotheosis for Canadian.
"My obsession", Rodriguez has been repeating for days but Basso, Scarponi and Pozzovivo also think so, "is to disconnect Hesjedal". If the parameters of the only stage against the clock faced by the tadpoles up to now, Herning's prologue won by Taylor Phinney, are taken as valid, there is no escape for Hesjedal's opponents. On the 8,7 km of the first mini-stage the Canadian was able to inflict 1"14 cents per kilometer on Basso, 1'60 cents on Rodriguez, even 4"25 cents on Scarponi. Advantages which, if they were confirmed over a much longer distance – the Milan time trial is 30 kilometers – would give the Canadian the final pink jersey. It would be the first time that the Giro was decided in the last kilometer of the last stage. Something similar happened in the 1989 Tour when Greg Lemond took away the yellow jersey from Laurent Fignon for 8 seconds at the end of the final time trial on the Champs Elysees. But Lemond was a known champion. So was Fignon. Champions who are no longer in the Giro today. There are only good riders but a Hesjedal out of nowhere is enough to worry them. All the more after the Garmin standard bearer was seen pedaling on the rollers to relax at the end of the Cortina stage: an image that impressed everyone. Even the bookmakers who hastened to lower Hesjedal's odds as a possible winner of the Giro from 15 to 3,5. Basso for Snai is always the favorite at 2,50 closely followed by Rodriguez at 2,75. But the Canadian is there. Less confidence in Scarponi listed at 9 while Pozzovivo is given at 30.
