Demare wins, Bardet retires: the two faces of France in the Giro

Thrilling final in Cuneo: flywheel of the cyclamen jersey, which thus makes trio But the pink race loses a great protagonist

WEDGE. The two faces of France, one sad, the other happy. The Giro is also this. Forgive us the winner of the Cuneo stage, the city of the Bersaglieri who are celebrating the 69th meeting here, but what happened on Friday 20 May on the road from Sanremo to Cuneo weighs much more in the economy of the pink race. one hundred km from the end. A quiet day for the men in the rankings has turned into an ordeal for Romain Bardet (DSM), Juan Pablo Lopez (Trek) at the fourth start at 14 ”from the pink jersey. The 31-year-old Frenchman, twice third in the Tour said enough, bent by stomach troubles that it turned out had made him suffer the pains of hell already in the district of Genoa.

He stopped on the side of the road, then got into the flagship. Crying out. On the Blockhaus he had shown that he had the climb as a friend as in the good old days.

And on Saturday 21 May in Turin, in a short wait since the start of the Giro, his black-blue jersey will be missing in front of him. Will something change in the balance up there where the rose is dreaming? We will begin to see him in the 147 km without a breather with Colle di Superga and Maddalena to be climbed four times in the final circuit. Narrow streets, climbs, descents (by the way, beware of Vincenzo Nibali, the captain of Astana will also be 37 years old, but he seems to be doing fine). He will be hot. Very hot. The pink Lopez jersey will have to outdo itself to return to the podium to celebrate.

And the group will have heavy legs after the Cuneo stage. Because four fugitives from the Nava hill Nicolas Prodhomme (Ag2r), Julius van den Berg (Ef), Pascal Unicorn (Jumbo) e Mirco Maestri (Aeolus) made the sprinter teams suffer, forced to squeeze all their men out of proportion.

The last to surrender was the Masters from Suzzara by adoption. At 400 meters from the finish, he was seen speeding by Arnaud Demare (Groupama) who won almost impaled at the photo finish by the German Phil Bahhaus (Bahrain) with a great blow to the kidneys. And then Fernando Gaviria (Uae), still beaten e Mark Cavendish (Quickstep). Then the winner of Reggio Emilia, the Paduan Alberto Dainese (Dsm), 5th, and in the top ten also Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel) and the other from Veneto Andrea Vendrame (Ag2r).

“I’m overjoyed, it was difficult to catch the fugitives: I want to bring the cyclamen jersey to Verona, but it won’t be easy,” said the Frenchman. Eighth success in the Giro for him, he can play poker, but he has only Treviso left. He gave a smile, it’s true, but he didn’t save the black day for the French.
The Italian campaign has not turned pink for them since 1989, the late “professor” won Laurent Fignon. Bardet, idol of a nation for the way of running, rejected several times by the yellow jersey, wanted to try with the pink squad. And he was going strong. Sin.

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