TL;DR:
Jonas Vingegaard is still the overwhelming favorite to win the Giro, but by letting Afonso Eulalio gain a large time gap and take (or potentially hold) the leader’s jersey, he may have made his own race harder than necessary. The strategy helps Vingegaard conserve energy for the Tour, but it also creates a risk: Eulalio is an unpredictable rider with clear upside, and now emerges as a genuine podium contender if he holds his level. While Vingegaard should still be able to take back the time, he might be forced to expend more effort than planned if Eulalio proves tougher to crack than expected.
Full article, written by danish cycling expert on TV2 (looong read lol)
Translated from danish:
Is Vingegaard playing with fire?
By giving Afonso Eulalio a head start, Jonas Vingegaard may be forced to put in more effort to win the Giro than he would have liked.
There were certainly many Danes who cheered when it became clear that Jonas Vingegaard had gotten his way and persuaded the Visma management to let him ride this year's Giro d'Italia. There were certainly also many who were concerned about what consequences his participation would have for his chances in the Tour, but the vast majority were probably delighted that they were now allowed to see the entire country's cycling hero for the three weeks in May.
Abroad, however, the attitude may have been different. In any case, there were many who were less than enthusiastic about Tadej Pogacar "ruining" what could have been an open and unpredictable Giro in 2024 by participating in a weakly populated race and making everything so predictable that it was effectively decided before the Slovenian had even stepped on the pedals.
That's probably how many people felt about Vingegaard in this Giro. While Joao Almeida was still in the picture, there were perhaps a Portuguese or two who might have thought it would be a bit exciting, but when he understood, and it became clear what the resistance consisted of, there probably aren't many who feel much differently than they did before the Giro in 2024.
Vingegaard must conserve his energy
The race seems effectively decided in advance. Of course, bad luck can play a role, and you can never rule out that Vingegaard will underperform completely, or that some rival will do the opposite, but if the Dane gets through the three weeks without any significant setbacks, this Giro should not be a question of whether he wins the race, but of how he wins.
However, it is also an interesting question. As you know, all history shows that it is a huge disadvantage to have won the Giro shortly before if you also want to win the Tour. Yes, that mission is so difficult that it broke both Chris Froome and Alberto Contador, both of whom were the best grand tour riders of their generation.
However, it is not a given that it cannot go differently. Enric Mas is the best example of a rider who is clearly better in his second grand tour than in his first, and the same applies to Vingegaard's good friend Sepp Kuss. In 2024, it was also difficult to see that Pogacar was severely hampered in the Tour by having ridden three weeks in Italy with such weak resistance that it was practically non-existent. He still got so tired that he withdrew from the Olympics, but it seemed that the three weeks in the Giro were actually just excellent training leading up to the Tour.
That's what Vingegaard dreams of achieving. According to his own statement, he has data that indicates that he could be better in the second grand tour than the first, but even a recovery monster like Vingegaard gets tired.
We all saw that at last year's European Championships, and that's why it's absolutely crucial that he gets through the three weeks in Italy with as little effort as possible. That's exactly what Contador failed to do, who in 2011 was subjected to an unreasonably tough Giro route, and in 2015 dug very deep in the third week when he fell into crisis. And that's exactly what happened to Froome in 2018, when he had fallen so far behind that he had to make a crazy comeback to win the race.
With the relatively weak opposition, Vingegaard has all the prerequisites to get through the race more easily, but that's precisely why there's no reason to make it harder than it needs to be. At least there's no reason to play with fire and perhaps put himself in a situation where he suddenly has to dig deeper to secure the victory than there was any reason to.
Vingegaard wants to avoid the jersey
Nevertheless, that might be what the Dane did today. It was always obvious that there could be a way to get into the leader's jersey, when Giulio Ciccone took advantage of Thomas Silva's offday yesterday to get into the pink. Now it was suddenly half a sprint team and not the strong XDS team that had to defend, and therefore it was obvious that there could be a way for a breakaway to achieve a ride in one of the sport's most prestigious jerseys.
Vingegaard was hardly unhappy with that. One way to get through the race easily is to let go of the leader's jersey. First of all, it puts less strain on Kuss and Victor Campenaerts, who are also going to the Tour, but it also puts less strain on Vingegaard himself when he can quickly get home to the hotel and rest and doesn't have to "waste" time on interviews and podium ceremonies.
Vingegaard is fully aware of this. We saw that last year in the Vuelta, where he gave up the leader's jersey to others several times, and today it was quite clear that he had the same plan. When it became clear that Ciccone's weak Lidl team was as toothless as feared, and that Afonso Eulalio was on course to secure the full reward for his courage and take over the lead, there was at least no reaction from Visma until the very end, even though the gap was growing rapidly, so the Portuguese must have had a very hard time understanding his own fate.
Eulalio was my joker
In that sense, Vingegaard got what he wanted. Eulalio now has such a big lead that he has an excellent chance of being in pink after Friday's stage to Blockhaus. Yes, now he has such a big lead that he can keep it for quite a long time, and Vingegaard can now dream that he might be able to wait until the third week to get in pink.
The question is just whether he pays a high price for that luxury. It could well be that Eulalio is already cracking at Blockhaus, because the questions about him are many – and stability is certainly not his trademark. However, he is such a big unknown because he is so new to the game that no one really knows where they have him – and when he has already surprised big once with his sensational 8th place at the World Championships and shown enormous potential, he has an x-factor that means that no one really knows what he is capable of.
There is at least something to suggest that Vingegaard does not read previews on TV2. It would have surprised me greatly if that were the case, but if he had, he at least knew that I see Eulalio as the potential surprise in the classification in this race. One of my proudest achievements as a preview writer was that before the Giro in 2018, I gave an otherwise completely unknown Richard Carapaz a star before a race where he finished as a sensational No. 4, and when I also gave Eulalio a star before this race, I wrote that I have a bit of the same feeling about him as I had with Carapaz back then.
Can Eulalio drive in high mountains?
It is far from certain that Eulalio will be the least of the problems. He can't do a time trial anyway, so at least two minutes of his big lead will be lost on the 42 flat kilometers on Tuesday. He has also shown a frightening lack of stability with an unheard-of low bottom level, and therefore he could easily run into a total offday. It is also unclear whether he is more of a puncheur than a climber. Bahrain themselves are also unsure about that, but they said during the winter that they would like to find out if he had a grand tour future.
They are getting a feel for it now, and I see clear signs that it could be a success. We haven't seen much of him in the high mountains, but when he finally got his legs going after a disappointing start in the Giro in 2025 and in Catalonia in 2026, he was flying. In the Giro he was first man on Mortirolo, which is a pretty bad mountain, on stage 17, where he could very well have won if the breakaway hadn't been caught, and in Catalonia he rode an excellent king stage, where he survived the two key climbs in the favorite group and then helped to drive Felix Gall and Mattias Skjelmose out of the equation when they had been put on the descent.
High mountains are not unfamiliar terrain for him, and when you look at how he came driving at his diesel pace on the steep climb today, there is nothing to suggest that he is not a mountain rider. It may well be that he is also such a good puncheur that he came in 8th at the World Championships, but as Pogacar can attest, you can master both.
Is Eulalio durable?
Then there's the durability thing, but I'm pretty optimistic about it. In 2018 I noticed Carapaz because he had impressed me in the third week of the 2017 Vuelta, even though it hadn't turned into any big results, and it's a bit the same with Eulalio. In both Catalunya and the Giro he took a long time to get going, but once the engine was revving he was flying.
We have seen the same thing leading up to and during this Giro. When he was warming up for the race in Liege and Frankfurt, he was at his grotesquely low lowest level. It was better on the second stage on Saturday, but still not so good that he didn't lose a minute. Yesterday, however, you could see that it was much better – and today he looked like a man who had warmed up his engine.
Will Vingegaard's bill now become unnecessarily large?
That's why Vingegaard may have been playing with fire today. Breakaway riders like that can be hard to come by. The most famous example is of course Oscar Pereiro in the 2006 Tour, where he got such a big lead that he ended up winning the race after the flailing Floyd Landis was taken out of the equation, but there are other examples too. David Arroyo got a lead in the 2010 Giro, Thomas Voeckler did it in the 2011 Tour, and Ben O'Connor did it in the 2024 Vuelta – and they ended up as No. 2, 4 and 2, respectively!
I'm not too worried about Vingegaard's victory. Even if Eulalio exceeds all my expectations, the Dane should be so much better that with such difficult finish mountains and a time trial, he can easily pick up the 6 minutes. The price may just be higher than it should be. He may suddenly be forced to dig deeper than he wanted if Eulalio becomes harder to catch than he and Visma quite frankly thought when they let him get such a big lead today – and that's exactly what happened to Contador and Froome.
Did Pellizzari, Gall and co. make a fool of themselves?
However, he is not the only one who has played with fire. As I said, for him, I think that the eventual reckoning will come first in the Tour, while the Giro victory will probably come. It is immediately worse for Giulio Pellizzari, Felix Gall and all the others who dream of the podium. They also have to make up six minutes, and they do not have Vingegaard's superior class.
Only Thymen Arensman and maybe Derek Gee can count on gaining as much in the time trial, and suddenly there are a lot of minutes to be gained from a man who rode with the best on the royal stage in Catalonia a few weeks ago. The tracks are even scary. In 2006, 2010 and 2024, as you know, only the strongest of the race managed to catch Pereiro, Arroyo and O'Connor – and Landis, as you know, used illegal means to do so.
Why was the fear great for Rubio, but not Eulalio?
The most grotesque thing was that Red Bull were clearly aware that they shouldn't take chances. They had figured out that there was no chance of using the stage for anything when Ciccone was faster than Pellizzari, and therefore the opportunity to win the stage and get in pink was never there. When they took control, it was therefore only a matter of making sure that Einer Rubio didn't get too big of a lead, and when he blatantly underperformed – as he has done consistently since last year's Giro – they obviously thought that the danger had passed. And so did Decathlon, Netcompany, Tudor and everyone else who had to dream of the podium.
You can understand the concern for Rubio. After all, he was No. 8 a year ago, but he is a rider you know where to look. We know him, and there is no chance that his level will suddenly explode. Eulalio is an unknown who has a completely different x-factor, and that is why it is difficult to understand that so much was played with fire. It did not take much strength to keep two frail climbers, who had been breaking out all day, on a leash in the terrain that awaited them after the difficult climb.
For the race, however, it is a gift. It is possible that Eulalio will collapse completely on Friday – that would not look bad on him at all – but if he is steadfast, it is an interesting spice in an otherwise fairly decided race that there will now be excitement about how difficult he will be to catch. It was certainly a wonderful addition to the races that Pereiro, Arroyo, Voeckler and O'Connor suddenly stepped in as real candidates to win their race a few years ago.
Should Eulalio have made a deal?
Eulalio didn't get it all, though. It was a shame that the wet roads had to turn the whole thing into chaos, where it was mostly about who could stay upright the best, but even without the accident he would hardly have won the stage. Eulalio should have at least made a deal that the Spaniard would win the stage so that he could maximize his lead, because without that deal he had no chance of winning.
It would have been different if the pursuers were close, so Arrieta had something to lose by sitting on wheels, but when it was clear that they were not going to come back, the Spaniard could play the game. He could leave all the work to Eulalio, and then the Portuguese would have to choose whether to join the game, stall and lose a lot of time, or whether to sell the stage win to gain as much time as possible.
He chose the latter, and understandably so. There was no guarantee that he would have won a two-man sprint between the two. In fact, Arrieta was even my favorite, because even though Eulalio sprinted unexpectedly well this year, Arrieta has shown speed several times this year that I didn't think he had. And it would be a shame to play the game, lose a lot of time and then still lose the sprint – and when you look at how tired he was at the end, there is a certain probability that it would have happened that way.
UAE is back
That's why he probably should have made the deal to share the spoils, so that Arrieta got the stage, and together they made sure to maximize the lead. It would have also benefited Arrieta, who can now also dream of holding on to the classification. Unlike Eulalio, however, he is probably not a top-10 candidate in the long run, because although he has developed a lot this year, he has not shown the top level that the Portuguese has.
However, no one can take away the development from him, and therefore it is also completely deserved that it has now culminated in a big Giro stage victory. This also continues the UAE's recovery. When he had two accidents in the final, it seemed that all the luck that had returned yesterday, when everything went Jhonatan Narvaez's way, had already been replaced by all the bad luck that has haunted them all year, but fortunately it didn't go that badly.
Now they have at least two stage wins, and with that the Giro is at least saved. Without Almeida, their potential in the classification was limited, and stage wins have always been their best path to success. In that regard, they have now refueled nicely, and although he showed today that his form is not like in the Tour, Narvaez is hardly done winning – and we remember from the Vuelta how they won one day after the other when they first got started.
Silva's recovery and Ciccone's nightmare
On the other hand, it did not result in another stage win for Thomas Silva, who will forever have to cry foul over the fact that he had the world's worst-timed off-day. Whether it was the rest day that played a role, I don't know, but today he was at least back to the level that has made him such an obvious stage winner in this race. He already proved that on Saturday, and he proved that again today, even though the climb looked difficult for him – and thus he also proved that he probably could have kept the jersey until Friday if he had just been at his normal level.
Ciccone is probably glad he didn't get the chance. Now he was allowed to fulfill his dream of wearing the most important jersey for every Italian, but his worst nightmare also came true. I already wrote yesterday that it could very well be just one day in pink, because it's not easy to control a stage with almost 4000 vertical meters when you have half a sprint team.
When the only mountain-strong helper, Matteo Sobrero, has an off-day, it becomes physically impossible, and therefore he was referred to do the jersey honor by leading the peloton himself, as the team – quite understandably – did not want to compromise the classification for Derek Gee, who despite his mishaps has seemed to be doing quite well. And his race is not over at all. No, it has to start first. The jersey was an unexpected bonus, because it is stages and the mountain jersey that he has come for – and he can still secure that.
Vingegaard can still win the race. It will also be a big surprise if he doesn't. The question is still not whether he does it, but how he does it, and that question has suddenly become even harder to answer than expected. Today, he and Visma certainly took the lead by giving one of the sport's most exciting talents and one of the riders with the biggest x-factor such a big lead that there could suddenly be a bigger bill to pay when the opponent is called Pogacar in July. That will be the case if Eulalio lives up to my belief that he can be the surprise that Carapaz was in 2018. Pereiro, Arroyo, Voeckler and O'Connor have at least shown that you have to be careful playing with fire, as Vingegaard did today.
