And another completely enthralling day in the giro, with attacks and gains and losses and heroics – I love it! There was an audacious attack by Van der Poel who tried to out-van-Aert van Aert as a big man going for a mountain stage, but his Fantasy Cycling had to bow to some wonderful young talent. Van der Poel was reeled in by the first 22-year-old Dutch rider Gijs Leemreise of TJV who looked set to win, before he was in turn overhauled by 22-year-old Santiago Buitrago winning the stage for brilliant Team Bahrain Victorious who saw Landa claw his way onto the podium in GC.
These are two surnames we are likely to become more familiar with, but each appears to have challenges. Gijs Leemreise demands 3 Dutch vowels (approximately “ij” = /ɛi̯/; “ee” = /eː/ and “ei” = /ɛi̯/ in IPA … no, chaps, that’s the International Phonetic Alphabet, not Indian Pale Ale!). And, if you can, find the hilarious clip of Bradley Wiggins trying to get into the press scrum to interview Buitrago straight after he’d got off his bike, in which Lord Brad of Wiggo in his (over-excitement) manages to mispronounce the young Colombian’s name in at least 3 different ways.
Chapeau!
For the third stage in a row, Stephen’s Team Ciclominaccia are top-scorers and continue their inevitable rise to the top of the minileague, coming through like the Sky-train of old, now in 2nd place and only 36 points short of toppling Paul W’s Don’t ruin it for me from the lead.
Team of the Day
HOWEVER, my selection for Team of the Day is DS Bendey’s Yo Adrian! who, with only 6 riders still on their bikes, nevertheless got 3 into the top ten on Stage 17 with 1st (Buitrago), 5th (Carapaz) and 10th (Landa), the only team to include the stage winner, but were just denied the highest velopoints. Is this a glimmer of a Rocky sequel in the making? Hear what the team director had to say at the Cannes Film Festival after Stage 14 (a bluff, perhaps?):
Hmm, it appears we have ended up with the alternative ending for Rocky II. There will be no uplifting training montage for today’s rest day. Instead, there is a moving 80’s power ballad showing the slow motion impacts of the vicious left-right combo of Bardet and then Dumoulin leaving the race. Rocky is now on a ventilator with severe concussion and Adrian is holding a vigil by his bedside.
In a dramatic finale I expect Yo Adrian to just about survive and have a sole valiant rider drag themselves over the line on the final day. This may then lead to a sequel where Yo Adrian makes a triumphant comeback at Le Tour – we’ll have to see if we can get studio backing.
DS Bendey
Unlucky
Sad to see Simon Yates pull out on Stage 17 with his edema of the bony spangiosa of the patella, or to give the technical term “hurty knee”. And that’s bad news for six teams, but especially Iseabel’s Hormonal Teenager who are reduced to eight wheels only. Sorry.
In other news, I think we can now confirm that possession of a Hawaiian Pizza is now an arrestable offence in Italy.
Links
- Dutch orthography – Wikipedia
- To see a Knight of the Realm attempting to interview the stage winner while trying to say “Buitrago” (possibly 4 different ways), see the GCN/Eurosport replay at 5hr:05:20 at the beginning of The Breakaway. Great British cyclist; entertainingly inept journalist.