Jhonatan Narváez fell just two pedal strokes short of victory in Naples on stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia, denied victory at the last when stage winner Olav Kooij and the sprinters swept past him almost beneath the Arrivo banner on Via Caracciolo. The Giro can foist all sorts of agonies upon its participants, but few are as visceral as a near miss like this one.
Still, Narváez wore his disappointment lightly as he warmed down in the shade outside the Ineos Grenadiers bus – not because his appetite on this Giro had already been sated by victory on the opening day in Turin, but simply because he had accepted the odds before laying the bet.
When the Ecuadorian champion burst out of the gruppo on the day’s final steep rise, 7km from the finish on the Neapolitan seafront, he would have known that agony was just as likely an outcome as ecstasy, but railing against an impossible foe is often what this game is all about. The day lent itself to a reduced group sprint, but Narváez’s form and the rugged run-in to Naples encouraged him to try all the same.
“It was a chance, it was a special stage with the curves and the kicks in the finale,” Narváez told Cyclingnews as he soft-pedalled on his turbo trainer. “If you don’t try, you don’t know what will happen. That’s why cycling is beautiful. In the final, that’s just what happened, and we weren’t able to take the victory.”
Narváez shook his head when asked if his early victory and day in the pink on his Giro – ahead of Tadej Pogačar, no less – had in any way tempered his dismay at being denied at the last here. No matter, that was all part of the gamble he had taken.
“It’s still a disappointment because I came so close,” Narváez said. “But that’s cycling. And well, in every sport, this happens. Sport teaches you to be a fighter, every day, and all the more so in a Grand Tour.”
Ineos’ overriding objective at this Giro remains Geraint Thomas’ overall ambitions, despite his 2:58 deficit to Pogačar. Narváez’s freedom of movement in the finale in Naples was contingent on Thomas being safely marshalled through the most sinuous parts of the stage. The Welshman was a faller with 58km remaining and he voiced concerns afterwards about the condition of the roads on the run-in, but Narváez was given the green light to try his hand as Naples drew near.
“It was planned a little bit,” Narváez said. “The team gave me a bit of freedom today, but first we had to make sure that our leader was safe, and then we could play our cards.”
Narváez’s acceleration came with a shade over 7km remaining on the sharp rise of the Collina di Posillipo. He scorched past earlier attacker Julian Alaphilippe on the ascent and then stretched out his advantage over a reduced peloton over the other side.
He continued to move nimbly through the streets of Naples. With a kilometre to go, Narváez still had 12 seconds in hand on the chasers and he looked a likely stage winner. As the finish line drew nearer, Pogačar took up the reins in support of his UAE teammate Juan Sebastian Molano, and that effort perhaps doomed Narváez. The sprinters opened their efforts soon afterwards, and Narváez fell just short of the prize, rolling home in 11th place as Kooij zoomed past to take victory.
“In the last part, I saw I had quite a big gap to the peloton, but in the end, I was just 15 or 10 metres short…” Narváez said. “But still, I rode well.”
That was something of an understatement. Pogačar may have been the leading man on the opening week of this Giro, but the best supporting actor has almost certainly been Narváez. The 27-year-old acknowledged that he was in something like the form of his life on this Giro, despite the crash that cut short a Classics campaign of considerable promise. His labours at home in El Playón de San Francisco last month have paid dividends here.
“I worked very well,” he said. “The team helped me a lot from both a physical and psychological standpoint. We did a hug amount of work to be ready and the team placed a lot of confidence in me, and we’re getting results here.”
