The Mondays of a big stage race, except the first, are almost always the rest day, although not for everyone. The members of the publicity caravan sleep more, those who are dedicated to setting up and taking down billboards, the police officers who monitor the roads, the workers in the permanent office, who no one knows why it is called that, because they never stay in the same place for more than one day. Even some journalists rest if the teams with potential decide to hold press conferences or interviews at decent hours, which sometimes do so almost at dawn and there is no opportunity to set the cell phone alarm a little later than usual.
Cyclists also relax a little more, show up for breakfast a little later and, as usual, go out to do kilometers, which they never miss, until lunchtime, more or less, but with the exception that, sometimes Halfway through the course, they look for a terrace to have a coffee or an infusion and chat with colleagues about matters unrelated to the day-to-day running of the competition.
In Naples it was one of those days. Among the runners there were those who took it as a relaxation after nine days of racing, such as Paret-Peintre, who filled the tank to try for victory, and others to give it a try, which is the case of the leader Tadej Pogacar, omnipresent and who had plenty of time with Mauro Gianetti and Josean Fernández Matxin, to design the strategy for the remainder of the race, which is not little, and also with the hardest part yet to come.
There are two ways of seeing things, between those who aspire to everything and those who, at a lower level, aspire to some partial success. The French rider, younger brother in a saga of cyclists who relate well to the mountains, managed, after fighting it, what his brother Aurelien did last year, winning a stage of the Giro. They are already tied in that matter, although for Valentin this is his first victory as a professional, after exhausting Bardet, another light body, but more worn by age – “I saw Romain when he was young, get on the podium in the Tour, and this time I fought with him and defeated him” –, and reached Tratnik, who had been brave, or perhaps reckless, to endure more than thirty kilometers alone, the wind in his face and always uphill along the winding routes of the Campania.
After the forest, where they circulated under the shelter of the trees, when the road was rougher and the wind was whipping, Paret-Peintre left behind Bardet, with whom he had shared kilometers and a previous attack on Andrea Bagioli, and went for Tratnik, who until then was the first of the stage, after a perhaps somewhat reckless effort with 35 kilometers to go and left him without strength in the last five of the climb.
Valentin Paret-Peintre flapped his arms in the last meters, in a slight descent, and it seemed that he was going to take off and fly with his thin body, a bag of bones, 50 kilos on the bicycle, at the Bocca della Selva finish line , a high ending that came after a day of reflection or relaxation, according to each person’s vision. Pogacar decided, this time, to wait, he restrained himself. “We let the break form so we could ride at our own pace,” noted the leader. “Other teams worked ahead and then Bahrai did. It was perfect for us,” confessed Pogacar, because, “I know we have to be patient in a grand tour, there are 21 days of racing, so we have to stay focused on the big stages and go day by day,” he told Italian television. .
His team allowed a large group to leave, so that others could work, and gave active rest to his UAE men, to complete a stage without any incidents other than the loose dog that Juanpe López had to overcome, and some unexpected withdrawals , like that of Olav Kooij, Sunday’s winner in Naples, who woke up with a fever. Everything else remains the same.
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