In three weeks of racing, the Giro hasn't seen a drop of water. In two days the Tour only caught rain without ever seeing a ray of sunshine. And the hostile climate that the race is encountering on Saturday in Germany and yesterday in Belgium, with the roads transformed into slippery streams of water, is a sword of Damocles hanging over the integrity of all the runners exposed to fearful falls. And bad luck doesn't look in anyone's face, indeed in this beginning of the Grande Boucle it seems to be particularly fierce against the big names.
In the timed trial the disastrous slide of Valverde who sent the timeless Spanish champion to the hospital, already operated on his leg to reduce the fractures; yesterday, in the second stage, when there were about twenty km to the finish line in Liège, under the raging flood, a gap at the head of the group sent Chris Froome and Romain Bardet to the ground, i.e. the master of the Tours of this decade and the French to which the transalpine cousins entrust Pinot with the almost impossible mission of bringing back the yellow jersey that has been missing in Paris since 1985, the last fifth success of Bernard Hinault.
Moments of panic in the caravan, recalling Froome's withdrawal due to a malignant fall in the cobblestone stage of the 2014 Tour, the one later won by Nibali. The platoon was traveling strong with the sprinter teams who were about to catch Taylor Phinney and Offredo, the two survivors of a four-man breakaway. Luckily for Froome and Bardet, the tumble didn't have the dramatic consequences of Valverde's. The two managed to rejoin without major problems but the fear left an aftermath in Froome's mood who at the finish line was less bold than Dusseldorf while keeping intact the advantage accumulated in the time trial over his direct rivals.
The captain's nervousness didn't affect the good mood of Geraint Thomas who defended the yellow jersey conquered in the prologue without problems. Also celebrating on stage with the Welshman was Marcel Kittel, the big German of Quick Step Floors who put his brand name in the first stage for sprinters – his tenth victory in the Tour – with a final rush of pure power slipping through the dense traffic of specialists of the sprint. Behind Kittel finished in order Demare, Greipel, Cavendish, Groenewegen, Colbrelli, Swift, Bouhanni, Matthews and Sagan: how to say an authentic parterre de roi of speed. Taylor Phinney, the American who took first pink jersey in the 2012 Giro, was also smiling in the greyness of Liège, who almost didn't believe it, he who hates climbs, that he had managed to wear, once in his life, the polka dot jersey of leader of the climbers for being the first to pass on the first two Gpm of 4th category of the Tour.
