All in one breath

In a stage fit for Thomas De Gendt, Thomas De Gendt was justifiably the first to move, but the rollercoaster of attacks and counterattacks in the first 75 kilometres was unmanageable even for him and, in the end, he didn’t manage to break away. We were waiting for Mathieu Van der Poel, but they were also waiting for him in the peloton: as soon as he tried to get out of the bunch, a dozen riders immediately stuck to his wheel. He also tried on the descent, but when he saw that he had Richard Carapaz on his wheel he realised it wasn’t his day.

Monte Sirino rose to become the unappealable judge of the initial squabbles: the smartest was Davide Formolo, the first to escape, then it was the turn of Davide Villella, Koen Bouwman and Wout Poels, and then a Maastricht Butterfly who had not flown in a road race for a while. Tom Dumoulin brought along a staggering Diego Camargo and his nemesis, in terms of cycling elegance, Bauke Mollema. The seven went away strongly and, after 75 kilometres at a thousand miles per hour, it was inevitable that their advantage would grow, and they would be in with a chance of victory.