Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari had feared the worst before the multi-climb mountain stage to Pila after their recent illness, but beyond the finish line, the two Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe riders were rightly proud of their combined performance on Giro d'Italia stage 14.
Both lost time to a dominant Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) but both moved up the GC. Hindley finished just nine seconds down on Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CMG) and gained 25 seconds on Thymen Arensman (Netcompany Ineos). Hindley climbed to fifth overall, 3:43 down on Vingegaard but is only 52 seconds down on Gall. Pellizzari rose three places to sixth at 4:22.
The young Italian was seen at the back of the GC group as Visma set a constantly painful pace early on the 16.5km climb to the finish. It looked like he was about to crack mentally rather than physically, yet he dug deep, was dragged back to the wheel by teammate Ben Zwiehoff and then seemed inspired.
When Vingegaard attacked with 4.6km to go, and the other GC riders began to fight to limit their losses and fight for the podium places, Pellizzari was able to distance numerous riders and then worked for Hindley to keep him in sight of Gall.
Hindley and Pellizzari finished just a few seconds apart, and beyond the line they rode to a shaded area where the Red Bull team staff had created a place to recover, change out of their sweat-soaked race clothing and pull on extra clothing for the long descent to the team buses.
Hindley sat on the ground, trying to help ease the pain in his body, as Pellizzari celebrated with some family and then talked openly about his fightback on the climb to Pila. They are two very different people but seem to work well together.
"The Giro is not over, we're going to give it our all. I'm happy to be here fighting with Jai," Pellizzari said.
"I was in a race against myself and so I just tried to give it my all and stay focused. I can only thank all the people who have helped in the last few days, without them I'd probably have quit and gone home."
Pellizzari raced in the best young rider's white jersey. Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) leads that competition and will wear white on Sunday after losing the maglia rosa to Vingegaard. However Pellizzari is only 1:56 behind him now and has something to aim for in the final week of the Giro and something to smile about.
"I fought back and I'm starting to feel better," he said.
"Let's hope that Sunday's stage is steady then it's the rest day. I said that a new Giro was going to start whatever happened today. It turned out to be true."
Cyclingnews observed how Hindley was happy to let Pellizzari take the media spotlight as he added layers of team clothing for the descent to the team buses.
Riders could take the cable car down the mountain but Hindley and others just wanted to escape the chaos of the finish and find some inner peace.
A soigneur put a whistle around Hindley's neck, and he set off, only giving us a simple but effective explanation of his day.
"Ahh… Pfff. It was not too shabby…" Hindley said far too modestly, before disappearing down the road.
It was far better than not too shabby. Hindley can perhaps fight for a place on the final podium in Rome and Pellizzari can win the best young rider's white jersey.
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