M.I.A. - MISSING IN ACTION

The 2019 Giro came down to a battle between the conf l icting talents and personal ities of Vincenzo Nibal i and Primož Rogl ič. But whi le they fought each other to a standsti l l , Richard Carapaz stepped over the bodies to take the overal l win. Procycl ing looks at how he did it

Writer: Barry Ryan

Procycling, August 2019

Every edition of the Giro d’Italia, it seems, exists as a function of the race’s past. “There are only two or three human stories”, Willa Cather wrote in her 1913 novel O Pioneers! “And they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” Her words could be applied readily to the Giro d’Italia, where some familiar plotlines have a habit of repeating themselves year after year, and generation after generation: head-to-head duels, late collapses and comebacks, epic mountain stages held in epic weather, betrayals... 

At first glance, the 2019 Giro seemed no different in this regard, but come the final weekend, it was increasingly apparent that some well-worn tropes didn’t stretch quite far enough to fit the overarching narrative of this year’s race. 

The anticipated duel between the conflicting personalities of Vincenzo Nibali and Primoz Roglic for instance, which so entertained in the second week, receded gradually in the third as Richard Carapaz tightened his grip on the maglia rosa, as the Italian realised he’d been watching the wrong man. Home hopes of a late Nibali turnaround to match his remarkable 2016 Houdini act, meanwhile, tacitly faded long before his challenge formally subsided on the slopes of the Passo Manghen on the penultimate stage. By the time Carapaz took his seat in the sports hall in San Martino di Castrozza for the race leader’s press conference on the last Friday of the race, the sala stampa was forlornly circling around another old favourite, internecine strife, as a means of shoehorning some drama into a race that risked ending on a subdued note. Carapaz’s Movistar comrade Mikel Landa lay fourth overall and though ostensibly hemmed in by team duties, the Basque persisted in giving the impression that he was willing to burst a few stitches in search of freedom. After accelerating forcefully in the finale at Anterselva on stage 17, for instance, Landa titillated further as he warmed down outside his team bus afterwards. Asked if he had attacked with an eye to finishing on the podium alongside Carapaz or trying to win the Giro for himself, Landa offered a knowingly enigmatic answer: “For everything.” Now, as the race entered its final weekend, Landa looked like the only rider with the strength to trouble Carapaz, but the Ecuadorian’s bearing was not that of a man troubled by the prospect of an imminent betrayal in the manner of Roche and Visentini. For one thing, while Landa did look his usual effortless self on the climbs, Carapaz had been looking more or less impregnable himself. Three questions about the limits of Landa’s loyalty were met with three equable responses. “I am not even thinking about it. I’m not letting it enter my head”, said Carapaz, whose default demeanour on this Giro, both on the road and in front of a microphone, was beatific calm. 

In truth, Carapaz’s trust in his teammate had already been rubberstamped on the Mortirolo on stage 16, when Landa helped to pace the pink jersey back up to Nibali’s attack and there would be no wrinkles in their relationship on the last mountain stage to Monte Avena. Indeed, when Nibali and Roglic were briefly distanced on the Manghen with more than 116km still to go, the race effectively ended as a contest. Come the final two ascents of the day, Carapaz’s comm

Come the final two ascents of the day, Carapaz’s command was such that he was essentially riding to help tee up Landa’s tilt at a podium place. Even with the Verona time trial still to come, the race for the maglia rosa was devoid of all suspense. The Giro wasn’t supposed to be like this.

BEST-LAID PLANS 

When the 2019 Giro was presented in Milan last October, the backloaded route was interpreted by some as a deliberate ploy to entice men like Tom Dumoulin and perhaps even Geraint Thomas to attempt the Giro-Tour double. Compared to previous Giri, the opening half was spectacularly tame. In truth, the genesis of the 2019 percorso was rather more haphazard. The southern city of Matera had been in line to host the Grande Partenza only for the local government to be hit by an unrelated corruption scandal last summer. Bologna was drafted in as a very late replacement and Mauro Vegni, the race director, had to redraw the first week of the race on the hoof. Instead of a classic south-to-north Giro, the 2019 race would trace a figure of eight from Bologna with only four stages in the southern half of the country.

Vegni performed a logistical miracle to effectively redraw the route, but it came at a cost to the race. The 2019 Giro wouldn’t climb to 1,000 metres above sea level until stage 12, and the sodden and flat – in every sense – opening half offered a rather compelling rebuttal of the old adage that it’s the riders who make the race and not the route. 

By the time the climbing did belatedly start, of course, some key riders were already absent. 2016 champion Dumoulin was forced to abandon after he injured his knee in a crash at Frascati on stage 4, while Egan Bernal didn’t even make it as far as Bologna after breaking his collarbone in a training crash a week before the race. 

More riders went missing in action in the San Marino time trial, including Simon Yates, who conceded more than three minutes to the stage winner Roglic and lost all hope of final victory. His eventual eighth place overall was a testament to his perspiration, but he raced without the inspiration that carried him to such heights a year ago. It was that kind of Giro.

WHY SO SERIOUS? 

Before the race, Dumoulin had suggested that any one of five contenders could claim overall victory, but by San Marino, La Gazzetta dello Sport had seen enough to declare the Giro a two-way tussle.  "It's Roglic versus Nibali," trilled a banner headline the next day. It was premature in the extreme, but it seemed that at least two people believed them: Roglic and Nibali themselves.

For the home press, Roglic was the ideal foil for Nibali. A strong rouleur and taciturn interviewee, he seemed a pastiche of the rivals – Indurain, Zülle, Tonkov – faced by Marco Pantani in yesteryear. At times, his distant monotone in post-race interviews felt like performance art in the style of Joaquin Phoenix in the mockumentary I’m Still Here. “Why are you so serious?” a local reporter asked Roglic on the first rest day in Riccione. The Slovenian smiled shyly: “Maybe I just look like that during the race.”

After winning the two time trials that bookended the opening week and spending the middle third of the race sitting comfortably as ‘virtual’ overall leader behind fellow countryman Jan Polanc, Roglic did indeed look every inch a Giro winner in waiting. His aura at that point was such that even some questionable – and ultimately costly – tactical decisions on the opening days in the Alps were being praised by rival managers as sure signs of his strategic acumen. It was hard to see how he could lose the race.

Yet on stage 13 to Ceresole Reale, for instance, Roglic choose to mark Nibali and allow men like Landa and Carapaz disappear up the road. A day later, he deliberately allowed Carapaz to take just enough time to move into the pink jersey by seven seconds rather than try to defend the tunic with his limited JumboVisma squad.

Those choices suddenly seemed rather less sage after stage 15 to Como, where he suffered a mechanical mishap before being dropped on the Civiglio and then crashing on the descent. It hardly helped that he was riding on team-mate Antwan Tolhoek’s bike as the JumboVisma directeurs sportifs had stopped for a natural break in the finale. Roglic's early buffer was gone and his air of impregnability irretrievably dispelled. He would struggle through the last week before placing third overall in Verona.

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

From the outset, it seemed that Nibali was backing himself to win the Giro by outlasting Roglic in the final week. He did just that, but his focus on the Slovenian distracted his attention from Carapaz, the dangerman who had been hiding in plain sight. It was an inexcusable error for a rider of Nibali’s experience and usual tactical acumen. 

Carapaz had demonstrated his pedigree by placing fourth overall at the 2018 Giro and then showcased his form by winning in the opening week in Frascati here, yet Nibali paid little heed when the Ecuadorian snatched 1'19" at Ceresole Reale, preferring instead to decry Roglic's conservative approach after the stage. If that could be classed as a misfortune, then repeating the mistake the following day was careless in the extreme, as Carapaz soloed to stage victory and took possession of the maglia rosa at Courmayeur, never to relinquish it again.

With Dumoulin and Bernal absent, Yates misfiring and Landa once again tying himself in knots early on, this was a clear opportunity for Nibali to land his third Giro and become the oldest winner in history. That he produced his most consistent set of time trial displays at a Grand Tour since his 2013 Giro win should only add to his frustration at needlessly frittering away so much time to Carapaz in the Alps.

Yet while Nibali squandered the chance, it would be remiss to say that Carapaz won the Giro simply because the Italian lost it. Carapaz was, together with Landa, the best climber in the race. Had he needed more time on Nibali, who is to say he wouldn’t have taken it? Through the last week, Carapaz carried the maglia rosa with such preternatural calm that by Verona, his surprise win no longer felt remotely surprising. Or, as Movistar manager Max Sciandri put it: “I think he believed right away that he could do it.” 

It was an unusual Giro, one that evaded easy definition or obvious comparison with recent editions. But in the end, the same old story repeated itself just as fiercely as before. The best man won.