Magnificent stage in Giro d'Italia gets a magnificent winner after unprecedented game of poker

Michael Valgren has won the seventeenth stage of the Giro d'Italia. The 34-year-old Dane had already won a stage in the Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this year, definitively putting an end to a physically and mentally tough period. In the Giro, he repeated the feat from a massive breakaway, eventually arriving solo with a late attack.

The day after the shortest stage of the Giro d'Italia, we can once again brace ourselves for a stage of over 200 kilometres. 202 to be precise, and it’s no walk in the park. Starting from Cassano d'Adda, the route features over 3,200 metres of climbing, with a course tailor-made for the attackers. They would have the chance to let loose one last time, not long before the final mountain stages.

But there were perhaps as many as forty riders hoping to pull off a move on the stage to Andalo. And so it turned into a massive battle as the flag waved. It was the expected names: Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step)... No shortage of horsepower, but a whole host of riders keen to make a difference.

In the end, it was a group of seven who managed to break away. Among them were Christen and Leknessund. They were joined by Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost), Rémi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ), Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani CSF Saber 7), Alessandro Tonelli (Polti VisitMalta) and Niklas Larsen (Unibet Rose Rockets). With that, the fierce battle seemed to be decided.

Once the brekaway had built up a lead of just under a minute over the peloton, it looked to be all over. Visma | Lease a Bike spread out across the road, but couldn’t prevent a small chasing group from breaking away. Mattia Bais (Polti VisitMalta), Tomas Kopecky (Unibet Rose Rockets), Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Sean Flynn, Frank van den Broek (Picnic PostNL), Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar) and Mick van Dijke (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) set off in pursuit.

Bayer and Kopecky dropped back, but the remaining men managed to catch up at the top of the Passo Dei Tre Termini, the first climb of the day. In the peloton, however, the fight to escape had restarted. A large group of chasers, including Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), Enric Mas (Movistar), and a dozen other names, tried to bridge to the front.

Tudor had no one with him and also had to work hard. After quite a battle, it eventually resulted in a group of 29 riders, with Ciccone and Narváez on board, but also Dutch riders Van Dijke and Van den Broek in the group. The most dangerous contender for the general classification was Caruso, well over 13 minutes behind the pink jersey, but close to the top ten.

The peloton was quite happy with the 29-man group for a long time, but at the front, things were naturally at a standstill. Cavagna decided to break away on his own and, although he built up a big lead on the flat, the group behind naturally wouldn’t let him get away. Just before the intermediate sprint – 59 kilometres from the finish – the Frenchman was caught and Narváez was able to pick up 12 points.

With that, the Ecuadorian from UAE virtually took over the purple points jersey from Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step). It was also the moment for attackers to capitalise immediately and break away. Caruso broke away and was joined by Valgren, among others, but the gaps between all the small groups heading into the final 30 kilometres remained small.

As cooperation was lacking across the board, the majority of the original leading group of 29 eventually came together as they entered the final 25 kilometres. With the rain already pouring down in buckets, we were in for a thrilling finale. Narváez and Ciccone suddenly saw opportunities for a stage win, whilst Caruso, with a lead of over 6 minutes on the peloton, was suddenly firmly in the top ten in the general classification.

With a chasing group featuring Narváez and Ciccone posing a serious threat, the front group began to work together just in time. This put the chasing pack out of the running, but the front group continued to play their cards close to their chest. Einer Rubio suddenly made a sharp move on behalf of Movistar and tried his luck several times. The fourth attempt proved successful, with Valgren joining him.

Caruso, Vlasov, Arrieta and Leknessund were close behind, but couldn’t quite close the gap heading into the final ten kilometres. That only became more difficult when Arrieta stopped taking the lead and Caruso became rather irritable as a result. It looked set to be a duel between Valgren and Rubio, with one more tough climb to come and a flat final kilometre.

On that climb, everyone was waiting for Rubio’s attack, but it didn’t come, allowing Arrieta to actually make his move. Valgren seemed fine with that, kept the pace up and was able to react when Caruso went for it from the back. Suddenly there were six of them, but there wasn’t really a climb left in the final kilometre. A game of poker, poker, poker...

And then suddenly came Valgren’s massive surge, coming all the way from the back, going at full throttle and shaking everyone off his wheel. He thundered solo to the finish, just as he had done earlier this year in the Tirreno-Adriatico. The grand return of a great athlete, who once crashed hard, seemed to be finished as a cyclist, and has now struck back.