“We will see,” said Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) as he sat in the hotseat of today’s individual time trial, waiting for Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) to begin. “We will cross the fingers, and we’ll wait.”
At this point, stage favourite Ganna had been in the hotseat for over two hours, after setting a blistering 53.45 km/h pace and finishing the 31.2 km time trial in 35.02. For much of the day, his closest rival had been Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla), who had finished 1.18 behind him.
But he’d been in this position before. In stage 7’s ITT, he had spent a long day in first place, only to be unseated by Pogačar at the last minute. And as Pogačar passed the first time check four seconds ahead of Ganna, it looked like the same could happen again. Ganna’s face, steely and tight-lipped, betrayed some of his nerves.
Pogačar’s lead began to dwindle as he rode, though only by seconds. At the second time check, he was 10 seconds down on the Italian time trial specialist, but the margin was still too small for Ganna to relax.
Minutes later, Pogačar, wearing the pink jersey, crossed the line. He’d finished 29 seconds slower than Ganna, putting him in second place. On camera, Ganna made a small, clipped smile, raising his fist to the air in a tiny celebration. Seated next to him, compatriot Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) squeezed Ganna’s shoulder, and he raised his head to the air and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d won.
As the bookmakers had predicted, today’s stage was better suited to Ganna than the first ITT had been. It was a mostly flat course, running from Castiglione delle Stiviere to Desenzano del Garda. There were some small bumps in the road, but only 250m of elevation gain in total.
“Today I suffered a lot,” Ganna said after the win. “I was just speaking with Jonathan Milan – for him it’s 70 seconds in the sprint and then you know immediately if you win or not. Today I waited two hours. In the end, I am a little bit blocked with emotions.
“In Italy, we have a lot of time without a win. It’s an intense moment, especially here, close to the lake [Garda]. It’s like a second home for me.”
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