Giro d'Italia stage 9. Three messages sent.
Jhonatan Narváez won the stage but Hindley and Eulálio also made announcements.
Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) won today’s lumpy stage from Cheti to Fermo. He won solo, convincingly and with panache. His depleted UAE team sent a message that, after three big stage wins, we’ve definitely gotten loud and clear.
Despite horrible crashes by their two GC leaders Adam Yates and Jay Vine, the squad has still delivered victory again and again. When the stars left the stage, the highly paid backup band gets the freedom to play. And man are they kicking out the jams. Ain’t it amazing what you can do with unlimited financial resources?
Message two was one of defiance. While Jonas Vingegaard (Visma Lease - Bike) cut his deficit to the pink jersey of race leader Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious), the Portuguese climber said he isn’t going down without a fight.
Today, he stuck with Vingegaard to the bitter end. In the final five kilometers to the finish, with grades up to 22%, he made it clear he’s not running a charity. If you want the Maglia Rosa, you’re going to have to tear it off his back.
We’ll see if he can back that defiance up tomorrow on the last climb — a category 1 grind up Corno alle Scale. That bit of torture is 10.8km at 6.1% climb with ramps of up to 15%. Eulálio may discover that his legs aren’t as strong as his dreams.
And last but not least, it was Jai Hindley who sent a reminder note to his team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Don’t forget I won this race in 2022 and took second in 2020. I got palmares, people.
With 400 meters to the finish, he put in a blistering acceleration that his own teammate Giulio Pellizzari could not match. Sure, he only gained two second but that bit of friskiness had a point.
Yes, everyone is excited about young Pellizzari, the Italian version of Paul Seixas, but I’m fifth on GC and he’s sixth. So I’m not a plan B.
Those three messages set us up for another rip-roaring day of drama in the Apennines mountain range. Let’s see who’s talking tomorrow.