Stage 1, Wednesday 17, the Sondrio loop

🤣, day #1 and Pogatchar🇸🇮 takes the time bonuses at Intermediate Sprints and attacks with more than 70 km to go…

Oh dear, it was a butchery. All the favourites I had picked in my presentation are gone 😆

Beside (and far behind) the Slovenian mutant, only Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) and Bagioli (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) produced rather impressive performances. The Italian would have closed the 1mn30 gap with the Ecuadorian who had gone away much earlier, if there hadn’t been that last short but very steep climb which allowed Carapaz🇪🇨 to gain again 15-20 seconds, enough to finish 2^nd^.

Coming back to my wonderful expertise:

Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) continues his mission, coming on races he hasn’t already won to fix this mistake. There won’t be much competition for General Classification, as Pidcock cancelled his participation: L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrain), M. Schmid (🇨🇭 Jayco), Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora), and perhaps Riccitello (🇺🇸 Decathlon) or Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrain) if they finally feel better. We may get interested in what the 3^rd^ Bahrain rider, Eulalio🇵🇹, can do here after his great Tour of Italy.

• L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrain) : +13 mn
• M. Schmid (🇨🇭 Jayco) : +13 mn
• Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrain) : +21 mn
• Eulalio (🇵🇹 Bahrain) : +24 mn

Only Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora) and Riccitello (🇺🇸 Decathlon) didn’t do too bad, without doing particularly well either: in the second group at 4′30″ (the Slovenian a little bit behind, dropped in the finish). They can both aim for top-10 or even top-5.