Naesen says Gall’s Giro podium was built on unwritten rules, smart positioning and a team effort against Arensman

Most of the attention at this Giro d’Italia went to Jonas Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike, but behind the Dane, Felix Gall also made a huge impression. The 28-year-old Austrian rode onto a Grand Tour podium for the first time, thanks to a different preparation and mindset and the help of bodyguard Oliver Naesen. Bram from IDL Pro Cycling spoke to Naesen on the final day in Rome.

That Gall would ride to second place in the Giro was something few people had expected. The climber took his first top-10 GC results last year in the Tour de France, where he was fifth, and the Vuelta a España, where he was eighth. Even so, it was still a surprise to many that he took the next step in the Giro. For three weeks, he was the strongest climber after Vingegaard. His weaker time trial on day ten barely even mattered.

“Very positive,” was how Naesen described Decathlon CMA CGM’s Giro. “We came here with big ambitions, and those turned out to be achievable. On paper we were aiming for top five, but dreaming of top three. We had thought that Giulio Pellizzari would be the second-best climber behind Vingegaard, but it turned out to be us. That was fantastic.”

Because sprinter Tobias Lund Andresen fell ill after a good start and had a “tough Giro”, the rest of the team could focus on Gall. He was supported impressively. “Before the Giro I already knew that Felix would be among the best two or three climbers, but how big would the beating be in the 42-kilometre time trial?”

Gall lost a lot of time in the time trial, but in the standings it curiously only meant he lost contact with Vingegaard. The podium was still fully within reach, and so Gall resurfaced again in the third week. “The big GC riders who are strong time triallists were not really here, so the damage remained limited. Still, danger is always lurking around the corner in a Grand Tour.”

The leader stayed out of trouble because there were no crosswinds, the weather was good after the first week, and Gall was not put under pressure on the descents he sometimes still feared. Naesen thought that was logical. “In previous years Felix wasted a lot of energy wriggling and pushing for position, energy he then lacked uphill.”

But above all, the place he had earned in the GC helped enormously, according to the Belgian. “If it is clear that you are the second-best climber in the peloton, it is hard for the rest to attack us. There are unwritten rules that you have to respect. As second in the standings, you are the second team in line in the peloton, which means Felix was always eighth or ninth at the front.”

“That was ideal for every descent. If a Filippo Ganna had been riding alongside us at that moment with Thymen Arensman, that would not have been allowed. And it works the other way too; if we had been behind INEOS in the standings, we would also not have ridden in front of or inside their train, and we would have had to endure the race behind them.”

Because of Gall’s GC position, Decathlon CMA CGM already had control in the important stages from the first week. And in the other stages, Naesen gave his leader extra calm. “Victor Campenaerts is the mouthpiece at Visma | Lease a Bike, and if he came over to Felix in a flat stage to ask what we were planning, he would always answer: ‘I’m just a passenger, talk to Oliver and leave me alone.’”

“In those stages nothing was expected of him, he just had to finish with the first group. That gave him a lot of peace. After that crash on day two, I also told Felix: we are not involved in that. It was wet, we were riding at 90 per hour, so we stayed centrally at the back. I promised him I would get him back to the front when we reached the climb. Those really were Felix’s strengths in this Giro.”

The final question that was on our lips in Rome: why did Decathlon CMA CGM often ride on the front in the finales of mountain stages, when the gap between Vingegaard and Gall was already obvious? Did the French team believe Gall could win a stage? No, Naesen said: “There were actually no more scenarios in which the number two could still win a stage.”

“Still, before stage 20 I told Felix: if there is one stage you can win, it is this one. I thought the chance of Jonas attacking on the steeper part of Piancavallo was small, because then he would have had to do the less steep sections on his own. Felix might then have been able to follow,” he said. Vingegaard, however, did attack on the steep part and rode the entire finale solo.

So why did Decathlon CMA CGM still often set the pace and make the battle for stage wins among the GC men so hard? “We mainly looked in the rear-view mirror and thought: how can we hurt Arensman and INEOS the most? Then you still have to let the final climb be fought for stage victory, because the pace is just a little sharper then and Arensman finds that harder.”

“On steeper sections that was even better for Felix, and also towards Jai Hindley. That is why we sometimes rode on the front, but only in the finale. We always saved our climbers, so that worked out well. For the TV viewer, the stage win counts, but Visma | Lease a Bike was truly much better. The difference was simply too big. Then you have to value second place properly. And that value is very big.”

Author: Bram van der Ploeg ( X: @BvdPloegg | email [email protected])