And on the 14th stage, Jonas Vingegaard and Visma Lease a Bike took control of the 2026 Giro d'Italia and took the maglia rosa.
If God's week of creation lasts six days, with a day of rest on the seventh day, Grand Tour racing follows a different calendar, with rest days each Monday and the big stages coming in the third week.
For two weeks, the Dane and his team have been playing a proxy GC war, letting other riders and teams wear pink and control the race, while they waited for the first multi-climb mountain stage in the Italian Alps of the Val d'Aosta. Vingegaard warned us on Friday that his moment had come, and on Saturday, he and his teammates finally stamped their authority on the Corsa Rosa.
The 113km, five-star, five-climb stage was expected to cause chaos, but Visma Lease a Bike were always in control. They were calculating, controlling and absolutely dominant in every moment of the race.
It reminded me of Team Sky at their very best and the Sky train they often employed in the mountain stages of the Tour de France as Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal won the Tour seven times between 2012 and 2019.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma have dominated the Tour since then, with UAE often crushing their rivals with Tadej Pogačar's incredible performances and audacious attacks.
Pogačar is at altitude preparing for the Tour de France and UAE are just bit-players in this year's Giro after losing Adam Yates and Jay Vine in the stage 2 crash. Jhonatan Narváez has won three stages and is in the fight for the points jersey but here in Italy, Visma are in ascendance and in charge.
It was always expected to play out this way but Visma preferred to play a waiting game since the Grand Partenza in Bulgaria, allowing other teams to enjoy some glory before enforcing their control.
Visma's intentions were clear to see as soon as stage 14 started.
Riders attacked on the first Saint-Barthélémy climb chasing personal glory and perhaps a stage victory. However, the Giro had changed and Visma had changed their game plan. The break was never allowed to gain more than four minutes and the Visma riders took turns to give it their all on the front of the peloton.
Tim Rex sparked a social media meme with his face pain as he tried to squeeze one last effort out of his body on the mid-stage Lin Noir climb. Even when the rouleur domestique was done, Visma still had Bart Lemmen, Victor Campenaerts, Sepp Kuss and Davide Piganzoli to ride in formation ahead of Vingegaard. The Visma bees were a swarm of dominance.
Lemmen was used on the Verrogne climb but Visma still controlled the peloton on the fast valley descent, pulling the break back to just 2:30. It was a clear sign that their race plan ended with Vingegaard winning the stage and taking the maglia rosa. It was written in the stars and in the team tactics.
When the 16.5km climb to the Pila finish began, Campenaerts took his position on the front and began to grind his way up the climb. Vingegaard hardly seemed to be breathing, but his rivals were suffering in silence and it was just a matter of time before the break was swept up and Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) was distanced.
Campenaerts eventually swung off after giving his all with 10.4km to go. Kuss took over, with Piganzoli selected as last man for Vingegaard. The Visma pace was already destructive, with Ben O'Connor (Jayco Alula), Eulálio and Derek Gee-Wesat (Lidl-Trek) soon put to the sword.
Vingegaard became the virtual race leader with seven kilometres to go, and Kuss swung off with six kilometres to go. There were only ten or so riders in the Vingegaard group.
Piganzoli pushed a big gear but kept the pace painful for everyone except Vingegaard who opted to surge away with 4.6km to go and began his own personal time trial to victory. It seemed a race in slow-mo, but the Dane extended his gap with every pedal stroke, as his rivals cursed, suffered and lost ground.
Vingegaard had no bidon on his bike to save weight and only put his nose into the wind for the final kilometres to the line. He seemed to briefly embrace the chaos of the tifosi screaming his name but it was all calculated and controlled.
At the finish, Vingegaard won the stage, gained more time on all his GC rivals and pulled on the maglia rosa.
"The plan was actually exactly how we executed it. We made the plan, and we said we were going to pace on the first climb and from there we went faster and faster, and that is basically what we did," Vingegaard said, celebrating the process as much as the result.
It wasn't spectacular racing or 'Grande Ciclismo', it was calculating, controlling and absolutely dominant.
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