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| The Giro stage two time trial passed in front of The Parliament Building in Budapest |
It’s Grand Tour time again, and the Giro d’Italia made a spectacular start from Hungary at the weekend, presenting us with two British winners.
Mind you, if
the tele listings on screen were to be believed, only the first hour of
Sunday’s stage was to be televised on Eurosport, before both Euro 1 and 2
switched to blanket coverage of some motor sport event.
But the
bodge didn’t end there, there was final stage of the Dunkirk 4-day being shown
that evening. But instead, the listings had the British Bennett’s motor
something or other.
Which was
another lie, because the motor event was in fact the Dunkirk race?
Are you
still with me?
As it
happened, this was a glitch. Wrong write up.
We did indeed get the full coverage of stage three.
But boring,
wasn’t it. Even former pro Robbie McEwan on the sofa said so, until those final
electrifying kilometres and that dazzling sprint win by Cav.
Terrible
thing to say, but earlier in the afternoon I had switched to watch the
Badminton Horse trials for a few minutes before going back to the race rolling
along, in chat mode.
There was nothing
to tempt the GC contenders, no hills or difficulties to make an attack stick,
and the sprinters teams were only interested in the finish. It was just a case
of staying safe and getting it done.
That’s not
to take anything away from the three breakaways that went from the start of
this 201 kilometre stage, gaining some five minutes before being reeled in
inside the final25km.
During which
time Matthia Boiis, Filippo Tagliani and Sam Rivi enjoyed the limelight, with
Rivi attacking the other two to take a
sprint, drawing Boois with him.
And so,
while the first stage fell to Dutch star Van de Poel in his maiden Giro, the
next two went to Brits: Simon Yates winning the short time trial through the
streets of beautiful Budapest. Thousands
of spectators to see the spectacle. It
was his fifth stage in the Giro, and his first time trial victory in a grand
tour.
Completing
the Hungarian festival of speed none other than ace sprinter Mark Cavendish was
in scintillating sprinting form to win a long scary gallop to take the third
stage – his 16th victory in the Italian Tour, nine
years after his last appearance.
Meanwhile, we
also had a stellar line up of former pros providing expert analysis on Breakaway on the Eurosport Television
sofa, hosted by Orla Chennaoui. She was wowing viewers yet again with the first
of many colourful outfits – one for each
stage - more suitable for the Oscars than a bike race, if you ask me and you
won’t.
But we’ll
let her off cos she knows her bike race onions, as do
her fellow
pundits on the sofa including former Tour de France point’s winner Aussie
Robbie McEwan, Dan Lloyd and Adam Blyth wearing a cardigan that might have
belonged to his grandmother.
Orla – have a
word.
Day three
ended with what surely was the longest transfer ever, over 1,300 miles by road
from Hungary to Sicily! The riders went by air.
The longest
transfer I did when covering Le Tour was 400 miles across Northern France, and
that was quite far enough.
The riders endured one hiccup, when one of the two planes to fly them from Lille to Brittany
was withdrawn from service at the last moment.
No problem. This was Le Tour, and another plane was conjured up pronto.
I remember we speculated on how another plane was found so quickly. and wondered if the airline had simply snatched it from another service, telling passengers that regrettably their flight was cancelled! Very likely!
But we never found out.
Vive le Grand Tours.
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