As he has been throughout this Giro d’Italia, Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) was once again active and aggressive on stage 11, attacking on the Alpe San Pellegrino and taking fifth at the finish, just a day after crashing in the TT.
Bernal and his sports director Zak Dempster explained at the finish that the move on the Alpe was mainly to test his legs after the crash and see if any other riders or teams were keen to go on the offensive early on.
As it turned out, they weren’t, but Ineos still took away some positives from the move.
“We didn’t get a heap of information from it, but I think the main thing was that he took confidence and after the crash from yesterday, he’s fine and the legs didn’t go anywhere overnight or he didn’t leave them on the road in Lucca,” Dempster told Cyclingnews.
Bernal went on to take fifth in the uphill sprint to the line, just behind Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling). It’s clear that the legs are there, and the 28-year-old is very excited and motivated to go for every opportunity and bonus second available, but Ineos’ long-term strategy in this Giro is about more than that.
“He even says that himself, he’ll say ‘I’m gonna win’,” Dempster said about whether the Colombian ever got over-excited in the race.
“But he’s still right there. Obviously, for him, it’s step by step, it’s been a long process and the fact that he’s there is bringing so much enjoyment for us all to see that hard work and resilience finally being rewarded after a long fight to get back. But still two weeks to go in this Giro, and we want a lot more from it than top fives, that’s for sure.”
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Bernal has certainly proved that he can take those top fives, but Ineos have plenty of reasons to believe he can do better, and some of that will come down to slightly calming his excitement about being back in the thick of it.
“Before the crash, Egan was beating Roglič sometimes on these punchy finals, you just forget it,” Dempster said.
“He got third the other day on that eight-minute last climb, but he was probably a bit more aggressive, and then today he probably got the front a little bit too early, but at the same time, the more finals you do, the better you get at them. And of course, he’s been involved in longer climbs, he got third at Catalunya, but in terms of punchy Grand Tour finishes, he’s back right there in the game, and I’m sure he’ll sharpen his instincts, and we can hopefully pop one.”
Winning a stage is one goal, but Ineos are also here to target the GC with both Bernal in 11th and Thymen Arensman in 10th on GC, and they see opportunities to take time, though they’ll have to be aggressive to do that.
“I think the days of grinding down the race like this team used to are gone. You need to go with a pretty violent effort or get creative, which is what we’ve been putting into play this year,” Dempster said. “There’s been some ups, been some downs, but we’ll keep trying.”
With so much climbing still to come, and harder, longer ones than the punchy finishes so far, all can still change dramatically on the GC, and Dempster knows the real overall fight is probably still to come.
“Let’s see what happens. We go to Asiago on Sunday. It’s not as violent as today, but then in the last week it comes thick and fast. I think we’re going to find out if there’s any pretenders in the GC classification either on Sunday or in the last week for sure.”
Ineos can’t do anything except wait and see, and they’re not counting their chickens, but the signs for Bernal and Arensman are promising.
“It’s all good, but it can be going good until it’s not,” Dempster concluded. “So we’re staying positive, but definitely we’re ready for anything.”
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