Picnic PostNL team takes two heavy blows in three days and may need to rethink Vuelta plan

After eleven days of racing, the climber is now 5 minutes and 34 seconds down on the maglia rosa of Isaac del Toro. And that’s despite starting stage 9 to Siena over the gravel roads of Tuscany in seventh place, just 45 seconds behind then-leader Diego Ulissi. But on the white roads, Poole lost 5 minutes and 2 seconds to stage winner Wout van Aert and his breakaway companion Del Toro, dropping sixteen spots in the GC.

What went wrong last Sunday? “It wasn’t the same kind of setback as in March, when I broke my collarbone at Strade Bianche,” Poole said. “This time it was just bad luck. I punctured early on the first gravel sector. When the race explodes like that, it’s so hard to get back. I also had to wait a bit for Romain (Bardet), who still had to chase back and then helped me limit the damage as much as possible.”

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After a well-earned rest day, Poole benefited from his lower GC position: he rode Tuesday’s time trial from Lucca to Pisa mostly in dry conditions. He was a little over a minute slower than stage winner Daan Hoole, but still gained significant time on many GC riders who had to deal with the rain. “It was a decent time trial, I think. I did what I could, and that’s the most important thing,” he said calmly on Wednesday morning.

But the improvement was short-lived. In stage 11, Poole was dropped on the first climb of the day and although he managed to fight his way back, even the less steep final wasn’t kind to him. “I just had a bad day, my body was empty. To be honest, I was just fucked. Romain and Chris (Hamilton) deserve all the credit because they brought me back after that steep climb. In the final I gave it everything I had.”

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“If you had told me on that first climb that I’d finish just 1 minute and 21 seconds behind the winner, I would’ve taken it,” Poole admitted honestly, after starting the day with a much more optimistic mindset. “The team started strong, especially with that huge win by Casper (van Uden) on stage four. I came through the first week in decent shape, even though the gravel stage didn’t go my way. I’m taking the positives from Tuesday’s time trial and we’ll build from there.”

But back on the rollers at the team bus, there wasn’t much left of that earlier optimism. “It was a bad day, but not a reason to panic. We’ll take it day by day and deal with whatever comes. Physically it was tough just to get through today, but those days are part of it. I haven’t had many like this and usually I bounce back,” he said, still holding out hope for a turnaround.

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And why shouldn’t he turn things around? Poole has already learned that the GC in this Giro won’t be settled in the first two weeks. “The Giro is a bit different from the Vuelta. Here, it seems like the focus is on surviving the first two weeks, with everyone aiming to peak in the third. In the Vuelta, you’re racing full-on for three weeks straight. In the Giro, it’s much more about managing things mentally and physically.”

That puts Poole at a real crossroads. Will he go all in for the GC again, or switch gears and aim for breakaways? In the 2024 Vuelta, he placed in the top three four times and showed his strength as an attacker. “The worst thing would be to hang somewhere in between. The key will be to fully commit to one or the other in that final week, but we’ll have to see how the race develops. Everything will come down to that last week.”

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