The transmigration of pink jerseys between Australians continues at the Giro: in La Spezia the primacy of Simon Clark is broadcast, taking away the symbol of primacy from his teammate, Michael Matthews, in great difficulty on the Passo del Termine climb. With the arrival at the top of Abetone awaiting the Giro today, the kangaroo festival seems to be numbered even if Orica could launch another of its riders, Esteban Chaves, Colombian and as such a good climber.
A XNUMX-year-old from Marano di Valpolicella has certainly just blossomed and has a future ahead of him to follow who yesterday enchanted everyone by winning an insidious and difficult stage by posting: it is Davide Formolo in his first success in his career, a cyclist who Vincenzo Nibali he knows well having sweated the classic seven shirts to tame his combativeness and beat him in the Italian championship last June.
Formolo, who had only been a professional for just a year, was part of the breakaway of about thirty riders – including Clark, Kreuziger, Chaves and Visconti – who just before halfway through the stage had accumulated an advantage of about ten minutes over Contador's group. About fifteen kilometers from the finish, when the group of the best had caught up with most of the fugitives, Formolo, with a superb action, flew off alone on the last stretch, resisting the unleashed chase behind him.
A victory so beautiful that since yesterday afternoon many have been led to predict that a new star has been born in the firmament of Italian cycling. 22” behind Simon Clark regulated the group of pursuers crossing the finish line with his arms raised to the sky convinced he had won. He had forgotten about Formolo, but he immediately consoled himself with the pink jersey.
In this small group of a dozen riders, in addition to the last remaining from the initial breakaway, including Kreuziger, Chaves, Visconti, Atapuma and Cataldo, there were also Contador, Aru and Porte but not Rigoberto Uran, who finished at 1'04” from Formolo. And the Colombian is the great loser of a day in which Astana with Aru gave Contador a lot of trouble, who was good at parrying the Sardinian's attacks.
But for the Pistolero team, Tinkoff-Saxo, yesterday was a complicated day, tactically not easy to manage when Kreuziger who had entered the breakaway that characterized the stage found himself about ten minutes ahead of the best . Of the thirty fugitives, he was the only big shot, potentially capable of winning a great three-week stage race: and the Czech, also out of pride, gave it his all while the embarrassment in the Tinkoff-Saxo house grew, which he could stop Kreuziger but at the same time he gave orders to his men to get ahead of the group to shoot by accelerating the pace.
A choice that must not have made Kreuziger happy and which confirms that the Russian team's mission is to bring Contador into the squad in Milan. Pozzovivo too, the unfortunate Lucan rider who crashed in Sunday's stage and ended up in hospital, fearing the worst, would have liked to get there, perhaps on the podium. Luckily his conditions have improved markedly enough to follow Formolo's exploit on TV. He will probably be back on the bike at the next Tour of Switzerland.
