Raise your hand if you expected Simon Yates to beat Tom Dumoulin in the Budapest time trial. And who would have expected the Briton to make it as far as to win the stage? Well, the twin brother of art has painted quite a masterpiece along the 9.2 km between Pest and Buda, because according to insiders today was a stage in which he was supposed to defend himself and not lose seconds from riders more accustomed to time trials. He not only did that but also won the stage, giving his Giro d’Italia a reason to be remembered, whatever his path in the Corsa Rosa may be.
Getting out of the box straight away: the fans like that. The Giro d’Italia has accustomed us to doing exactly that and, right from the second stage, it has decided it was right to turn the odds upside down and ruin all the bookmakers’ predictions. If yesterday’s victory went to the most expected rider, today it’s time for the least expected rider to celebrate. And yesterday’s most expected rider came second today, retaining the Maglia Rosa and showing another display of crystalline class. Mathieu Van der Poel, in fact, by his own admission, had only used the time trial bike once in the last two weeks. But if you have an engine like VDP’s, that’s enough, apparently. So tomorrow he will be able to show off that beautiful pink bike again, which has made fans’ eyes sparkle.
