At around 3:30 p.m., when Filippo Ganna destroyed the time of Mikkel Bjerg, who had so far posted the best time in this individual time trial between Foligno and Perugia (40.6km), we said to ourselves that only a Tadej Pogacar of the (very) great days could dethrone the Italian champion of the discipline of solitary effort. That’s exactly what happened.
The Slovenian disgusted the competition, even though he was about forty seconds behind Ganna after the first 34 flat kilometers, favorable to riders like Ganna. But the former double winner of the Tour de France stuck to the Italian for more than a minute in the final 6-kilometer climb (at an average slope of 4.1% with passages over 10%) to ultimately win. ahead by 17 seconds.
Geraint Thomas lost big
Filippo Ganna’s teammates, Magnus Sheffield (49”) and Thymen Arensman (1’00”) respectively placed third and fourth in the stage. The big loser of the day is undoubtedly their leader, Geraint Thomas (10th), who conceded 2 minutes to Pogacar. The Welshman even gave up his second place overall, in favor of Daniel Felipe Martinez, author of the eighth fastest time (1’49”). The leader of the INEOS team is not the only loser of the day: Einer Rubio and Juan Pedro Lopez spent more than four minutes on the Slovenian ogre.
Romain Bardet limited the damage
On the other hand, Ben O’Connor is one of the winners of this time trial in the general view. The Australian set the 11th time (2’07”), which allows him to climb to fourth place overall (3’33) ahead of his compatriot Luke Plapp (3’42”). The young Belgian Cian Uijtdebroeks, leader of the Visma-Lease a Bike team, fell to 7th place overall (3’50”) after his twentieth time in Perugia.
The first Frenchman on the stage, Romain Bardet set an honorable time, 18th time, and climbed to 14th place overall. A ranking largely dominated by Tadej Pogacar who now has 2’36” on his new Colombian runner-up, Daniel Felipe Martinez.