Fantastic Television
Stage 9 of this Giro d’Italia, from Gubbio in Umbria to the Tuscan jewel of Sienna made for some of the best television I’ve ever seen. The beauty of the two vacation paradise provinces alone, with their hilltop castelli guarded by sentinel-like cypress trees, narrow twisting roads and manicured landscapes all made for magnificent viewing. Then there was the racing.
What an insane sport cycling truly is. The spectral images of the racers emerging from the thick clouds of dust on le strade bianche, the crashes followed by bloody, courageous comebacks, the clear suffering of the racers on the never-ending series of brutal climbs, it all made for complete, engrossing entertainment.
The tragedy of Egan Bernal, with his hyper-expensive team putting their all into his chances, especially fellow Colombian Brandon Rivera riding the race of his life in service to his national champion, both trapped by team tactics into racing overly aggressively at the front only for Bernal to fade at the crucial moment, was poignant. Bernal is a fine racer, that is certain, but despite a complete position overhaul and anything else his technical team could come up with, he lacks that super-turbo power, that ability to surge that separates the Evenepoel’s, Pogačars and Van Der Poel’s from everyone else. He is and always will remain a diesel.
The emergence on the big stage of Isaac Del Toro – whom, it should be noted won the Tour de l’Avenir at 19 and the Vuelta Asturias last year at 20, so no complete surprise – was a delight, especially as his somewhat nasty character was clearly on display. His impatient, aggressive pedaling styling is exciting to watch and it’s clear that he’s a true bicycle racer: always right on-the-edge when cornering, constantly in the right position in the group, a good ability to surge, he knows exactly what he is doing.
After destroying Bernal on the final climb, with only Wout van Aert able to follow, the heavy Belgian flat out on the wheel, gamely trying to work on the downhills and rare moments of flat, the Mexican champion would pull alongside Van Aert and tauntingly look at him square in the face, reveling in the suffering he was inflicting. And that suffering was intense. In another instance, Del Toro rode right underneath a sponsor sign, one that was high enough for him to pass but that forced Van Aert into a last minute duck: that was vicious.
Towards the end, van Aert, sitting on for dear life, was keeping his front wheel no further than an inch away from the back of Del Toro because in those circumstances, when you’ve hanging on that precariously – and I’ve been there – if you let the gap grow to two inches you are done. It’s not the drafting effect, rather the psychological one as you can’t allow that thread to stretch that extra inch because it will break.
The final kilometer was astounding, helped greatly by almost perfect camera placements and editing. The drama of the two leaders fighting tooth and nail for the win, the need for Van Aert to redeem himself after so much bad luck, the vertical climb into Siena and fighting for position, it was breathtaking. There was one fixed camera with about 500-meters to go, set low that captured in full the faces of the antagonists, the complete and total effort on their faces. I’ve never seen a TV image like that in sport before. Van Aert’s cornering at the end was spectacular and the win so well deserved. Del Toro became the first Mexican to ever wear pink – Raoul Alcala must be so proud- and the Giro lives up to its reputation as the most beautiful, crazy and chaotic race in the world.