Johan Bruyneel won't be surprised if there's a Giro podium upset: 'I expected a bit more from him'

That Jonas Vingegaard is going to win the Giro d'Italia has been obvious for some time. But underneath him, the battle for the podium places remains deliciously tense. Thymen Arensman is up against Felix Gall and Jai Hindley, three riders desperate to finish alongside the pink jersey. Who will come out on top? Johan Bruyneel can smell an upset.

Bruyneel sees the podium fight as "the most exciting battle of the Giro." Gall is still second overall, but the Belgian did not see his strongest day on the 16th stage to Carì. "Gall does not look as dominant as he did at first," Bruyneel said on THEMOVE.

"They still have to drop him, of course, but it is becoming an interesting race for the podium." Bruyneel praised Gall’s tactical choices in the fight for the top three. "He rode smart, saw that he was not pulling away any more because Bernal was riding for Arensman."

"He did not really wait, but he also did not empty himself. He could sit in the wheel for a while after that, which was smart. In the end he picked up a few more seconds. But I expected a bit more from him".

Two mountain stages remain. Can the podium contenders still pull something special out of the hat? "There are no tactics left now, the legs have to do the talking. You just have to make sure you are there with the favourites for the final climb. The rider with the best legs takes it. One of them will have a day where he is slightly off. That will make the difference between third and fourth place".

Gall is known as a phenomenal climber, but he also has his weaknesses. His modest time trial is well known, and in descent the Austrian of Decathlon CMA CGM is also not at his best. In the Tour of Catalonia, where he was the strongest climber behind Vingegaard, he lost his podium place on a descent during stage six.

Can his rivals exploit that? "That is possible, but it is not easy in the final week," said Bruyneel. "It makes more sense in the first week. Your body is on autopilot. Even if you are the best descender, you are exhausted. And you have to make sure you do not come off yourself. Only in bad weather is it different. Then you can put him under pressure and make him make mistakes".

Laurens ten Dam sees Gall as strong, but also expects a lot from Arensman in the closing stages. On the road to Carì, the Dutchman went on the attack for the first time. "He is only half a minute behind Gall," Ten Dam said on his Live Slow Ride Fast podcast.

"Today it might have been more if Gall had not been brought back. But I would keep doing it that way, going with 2 or 3 kilometres to go." Then there is Hindley, the third man in the story. Ten Dam knows him well from his Sunweb days.

"He has a different life story from other Australians. He had not yet been through the Australian Institute of Sport, so he was not flown to Italy to race. He simply decided: I want to be a cyclist. That is how he ended up at an Italian amateur club as an 18-year-old."

There, the Australian climber was housed with an Italian team boss. "He immediately said: you are too fat. So he got hardly any food, and the next morning he was woken at six to go to a race by car. He really had a tough upbringing." And that is paying off now, Ten Dam says. "He is just there again, isn’t he?"