He may have narrowly missed on the win, but it was an emotional symbol of top form returning for Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost) at the Giro d’Italia as he took second on stage 5, removing any doubt that he is truly back after a long injury recovery.
Valgren was only bested by Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) in Lucca after a four-man breakaway cooperated brilliantly to stay away from a charging peloton. It showed that he really is back at the top of the sport, that 18 months of hard work and small wins have paid off.
It was in 2022 that the wheels came off for the Dane when doctors at the time were forced to question if a return to racing was ever going to be possible after a nasty crash at the Route d’Occitanie. He left the race and had a long recovery with a fractured pelvis, dislocated hip, a ruptured ACL and MCL (knee ligaments) and a ruptured meniscus.
But after an extensive rehabilitation programme and some time on EF’s development team, 2024 has seen Valgren right back in amongst the Classics action with an eighth at Dwars door Vlaanderen and scoring his best-ever stage result at a Grand Tour.
“It's the Giro right, it means a lot,” the Dane told reporters after the line. “A few years back, I was not sure if I had a contract.
“The team really helped me through this in a really good way and I'm happy to start to pay things back. I'm just grateful I can still be a cyclist so thanks to everybody.”
Valgren’s career burst into life in 2018 when he scored the two biggest wins of his career at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Amstel Gold Race, but it was an earlier part of his journey as a cyclist that helped him during his time in the stage 5 breakaway in 2024.
The Dane was an inhabitant of Lucca, the finish location of today’s stage, while starting his racing career in 2014 on the Tinkoff-Saxo team, owned by compatriot Bjarne Riis, who based their operations in Tuscany as a squad.
“Lucca was my home once, for one year in my first year as a pro with [Tinkoff-]Saxo so it has a special meaning for sure,” Valgren said. “I knew the last 50k's. It was nice to be back.
It turned out that eventual winner Thomas also knew the roads well as a Frenchman who lives in Italy, but Valgren was still grateful for the extra perceived power on adopted home roads.
“I think knowing the Montemagno climbs was a good one to know, but the rest was pretty straightforward, to be honest. You know, nowadays you have the map on the computer and we know everything with the video view and everything. So it doesn't really come as a shock for anybody,” he admitted.
“But you know, when you're kind of on your home roads, you always get 10% extra in the legs, and that's also the feeling I had today. I felt good.”
Valgren was outfoxed by Thomas who stated post-race how willing he was to risk losing so he didn’t have to chase down a late attack from Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-Kometa) in the finale.
“The Polti guy [Pietrobon] was taking short turns and not super strong and then he came with a late attack which kinda messed up the cooperation, obviously,” Valgren said.
But despite losing, the Dane wasn’t too disheartened, only joking that he has a few lessons to learn from compatriot and former teammate Magnus Cort, who is an expert breakaway rider and completed the Grand Tour stage win set at last year’s Giro from a three-man break into tomorrow’s start location Viareggio.
“I had to go a really long sprint and hopefully, I could do a Magnus Cort Nielsen sprint you know, but yeah, I have to learn a bit more,” Valgren said.
“But we worked good together and we knew it would be difficult, but we made it. Chapeau to the other guys for working well together.”
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