Egan Bernal saves the day but early struggles never a good sign at Giro

There was some uncertainty beforehand as to whether stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia would be beyond the range of the sprinters, but Lidl-Trek sports director Bernhard Eisel had few doubts when we spoke with him before the start in Catanzaro on Tuesday. 

“I think today is the first fireworks,” Eisel laughed, pointing at the stiff climb of Cozzo Tunno and the desire of UAE Team Emirates-XRG to put a different stamp on their Giro after losing three riders during the attritional Bulgarian Grande Partenza.

Eisel wasn’t wrong, of course, with his sprinter Jonathan Milan among those duly jettisoned out the back on Cozzo Tunno, while Jhonatan Narváez powered to victory in Cosenza for UAE. But, as is so often the case, the Giro took an unexpected route to the anticipated destination.

The first surprise was that it was Movistar who ripped the race apart on Cozzo Tunno, eager to rid the peloton of the pure sprinters on behalf of their man Orluis Aular, who would sprint to second on the stage. The strategy of Matt White and Max Sciandri was flawless and the execution wasn’t far off either. 

The bigger shock, however, was that Egan Bernal was among those distanced by Movistar’s show of force on the climb. The Colombian champion had looked in sparkling form at last month’s Tour of the Alps, raising hopes that he could mount a realistic challenge at a Grand Tour for the first time since his career-altering training crash four years. 

That might yet materialise, of course – the Giro is still long, and Bernal’s powers of endurance have always been a calling card – but this was not an encouraging start on Italian roads. There were still more than 40 riders in the front group when Bernal unexpectedly began to feel the pinch with around a third of the climb to Cozzo Tunno remaining.

Bernal was distanced 2km or so from the top, cresting the summit with half a minute or so to couple on the front of the race. He had teammate Ben Turner for company to help pace him back on, and they found a very useful ally of circumstance on the run-in when Lidl-Trek’s Derek Gee-West became an ally of circumstance after he punctured in the finale.

They would make it back to the front group with 17km remaining, and that even briefly raised the prospect of Bernal moving into the pink jersey at day’s end thanks to the time bonus he had snaffled in Bulgaria. In the circumstances, it might have been a muted kind of celebration.

It proved to be a moot point in any case, with Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) doing enough at the Red Bull sprint and again at the finish to take the seconds he needed to move into pink. Bernal rolled home in 27th place on the stage and he remains the best-place podium contender for now, lying fourth overall at four seconds.

In practical terms, Bernal’s Giro challenge remains unchanged. He set out from Nessebar as co-leader with Thymen Arensman and that remains resolutely the case now, but his travails on a category 2 climb will surely raise quiet concerns at Netcompany-Ineos.

Bernal preferred not to speak at the finish line, drifting through the post-stage bustle on Cosenza’s Via Felice Migliori and soft pedalling off towards his team bus. Another day less. All told, it could have been much worse.

Speaking at the start in Catanzaro, Netcompany-Ineos director of racing Geraint Thomas had warned against reading too much into the swings and roundabouts of the Giro GC until the race reached its third week. In his view, even if Arensman were to fare better than Bernal on the Blockhaus on stage 7 and the time trial on stage 10, it wouldn’t mark any particular shift in the Ineos hierarchy. 

Beyond the finish line in Cosenza, meanwhile, Bernal’s teammate Jack Haig warned against making snap judgements based on his struggles on one climb early in the race, and not only because the day was ultimately saved. Although Bernal impressed at the Tour of the Alps, he had endured a two-month hiatus from racing in the spring after a nagging knee injury had kept him off the bike entirely for three whole weeks.

“I think you need to realise that he hasn’t really had a whole lot of racing coming to this Giro,” Haig said. “He had a bit of a setback with a small niggle in his knee after racing in Europe at the very beginning at Ardêche. He probably doesn’t have the best legs at the moment, and we can see that right now, but hopefully with that reduction in load coming into the Giro he can sort of build into it, and I think we’ll get the first tell once we get to Blockhaus on stage 7.”

There might even be some indications before then, mind, with the Giro set to take in some decidedly rugged terrain on the road to Potenza on Wednesday. The difficulty of the afternoon could be accentuated still further if Giro favourite Jonas Vingegaard and chief rival Giulio Pellizzari are inclined to hunt bonus seconds at the uphill Red Bull sprint inside the final 30km.

This Giro might be lighter on podium challengers after its crash-littered opening in Bulgaria, but the firework quotient remains the same as ever. Whether on the Blockhaus or before, we will soon learn if Bernal’s difficulties in Calabria were a mere blip or a symptom of a deeper malaise.