It will have come to no surprise to anyone who has been following professional cycling in the last few years that Chris Froome took home the pink jersey in this year’s Giro d’Italia.
This solidifies Froome as one of the most successful riders of all time; he has now taken successive wins in three Grand Tours: the Tour de France, the Vuelta a España, and the Giro d’Italia.
A welcome, but not altogether unusual, change from the race controlling tactics often seen from Team Sky, Chris Froome took the win with a certain amount of flare.
His performance in stage 19 in particular will go down in history alongside some of his other memorable moments in recent Grand Tours (remember his famous descent perched in an aerodynamic position on his top tube in the 2016 Tour de France?).
Sat in fourth place overall and over 3 minutes behind Simon Yates (who was riding a 2018 Scott road bike and was one of our riders to watch in our Giro d’Italia preview article) of team Mitchelton-Scott, Froome’s options were limited. In a show of strength over all the other riders, Froome attacked and rode solo for 80km on the Colle delle Finestre.
The result: the stage win, the pink jersey, and a considerable and ultimately tour winning 40 second lead over Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb.
Even BMC Racing sports director Valerio Piva was impressed:
“I don’t remember anything like this in recent grand tours, you have to return to old times. [...] When you consider a comparison to Froome’s ride, you talking about another era.”
“You just have to say ‘chapeau’ to Froome.”
