The big story in cycling this week (and indeed this month) is the start of the Giro d’Italia. It is, after all, very hard not to get excited about 194 very skinny men chasing another very skinny man in a pink blouse around a mid-sized European country.
On paper, day one was a clear victory for the sprinters – a rare opportunity for one of the fast men to win and wear the iconic leader’s jersey of a Grand Tour.
Unfortunately, Lukas Potzlsberger’s copy of the script must’ve got lost in the post because the young Austrian took a flyer under the flamme rouge and managed to hold out for his first Grand Tour stage win.
Day two was a more unpredictable affair on paper, so of course it ended in the bunch sprint we’d assumed we’d see the day prior. Greipel the Gorilla and his train of Lotto-Soudal lieutenants did more than enough to grab a victory. And the maglia rosa.
