Mountains overturn Giro d'Italia. Scaroni wins, Carapaz leaves Del Toro behind

They wander, they wander. Girolanz… they wander, they wander, they wander . The riders wander between climbs and descents, under the mountain tops, on the passes that have been missing for two weeks to find themselves all together for the grand finale of the Giro d'Italia, that third hardcore week that the Giro insists on granting itself .

And ambitions roam, fleeing from the group in search of a victory. Like those of Lorenzo Fortunato and Christian Scaroni . Having escaped before it was even lunchtime, when buckets of water were still falling from the sky. Having also escaped from the escapees on the road leading to San Valentino, they arrived in a team parade, the XDS-Astana, under the finish line banner. First a handshake, then a hug and the finish line crossed with the right hand in the left hand and the other two celebrating victory and friendship. Which perhaps is not love in the manner of the saint of the feast of lovers, the one introduced by Pope Gelasius I to try to make Christians forget the Lupercalia, but so it is. First Christian Scaroni, second Lorenzo Fortunato who today in the mountains of Trentino has collected points from the Grand Prix of the mountain to avoid taking off the blue jersey of the best climber.

And the ambitions of the Giro are wandering around, wrapped in the regret of a withdrawal, that of Primoz Roglic, or of a knee that hurts and a leg that doesn't turn, those of Juan Ayuso, who arrived a quarter of an hour after Scaroni, with his face black with regret.

The Giro d'Italia 2025 that was supposed to be was lost in the first two weeks, it disintegrated completely in the sixteenth stage, at the first mountains of the last week. We are witnessing something else and we cannot complain. After all, it has always been like this: the road decides, the legs and the mountains decide.

And the road, the legs and the mountains have said that Richard Carapaz has that indomitable desire for beautiful days, when he feels his legs screaming attack! And he is not a rider who needs to be told twice. He attacked. With a violent and dancing sprint he detached Simon Yates and Isaac Del Toro, the best with him when the road goes up. The only ones who in Piazzola sul Brenta were ahead of him in the general classification (with Juan Ayuso, who however went into crisis and therefore had already eliminated himself).

And the road, the legs and the mountains have said that Giulio Pellizzari , free from the task of acting as a nanny for Roglic , has the talent to be with the best and even ahead of the best. On the road that led to the finish line he took off in the disinterest of the strongest. However, he went faster than the strongest. He was caught by Carapaz, he caught his wheel, then he left him behind: third at the finish line, tricolor podium completed, ninth in the general classification at 4'36” from the pink jersey and four minutes from the podium. A message to opponents and team: dear all, you have to deal with me too.

From Piazzola sul Brenta to San Valentino, along 203 kilometers of the sixteenth stage, the Giro has changed its look and changed its expression. The vigor has disappeared from Isaac Del Toro's face, and doubt has crept in, the terrible doubt of someone who has stopped finding easy what used to be easy for him, that is, jumping on the pedals, changing pace, making others work hard. A doubt soothed only by another doubt, this one sweeter, that in the end it was just a failure from a first experience in a grand tour, from poor management of the rest day. A failure, all things considered, managed without panicking too much. He will restart from San Michele all'Adige still in the pink jersey. And this is a reason not to be too catastrophic.

Tomorrow there will be new mountains and new shots. Someone will try to put him in difficulty. There will be new escapes.

Today's team managed to reach the finish line before the strongest, at least to a small extent. Christian Scaroni and Lorenzo Fortunato smiled. Jefferson Cepeda, sixth, was not too disappointed. It could have gone better for many.

To the seven pioneers of the ready-to-go: Xabier Mikel Azparren, Jon Barrenetxea, Josef Cerny, Lorenzo Germani, Joshua Tarling and Wout van Aert. To the other sixteen who with the XDS Astana duo had reached them. Many had lost their way even before the Santa Barbara, some remained even when the road that led to the pass began to separate the wheat from the chaff: Pello Bilbao, Jefferson Cepeda, Gij Leemreize, Sylvain Moniquet and Yannis Voisard. The Swiss invented a descent of hair and skill towards Mori. He took advantage on the descent, to try to continue doing so on the climb. It didn't go as he would have liked.

Things went even worse for Joshua Tarling and Alessio Martinelli. The first hit a guardrail, the second fell off a cliff. Both ended up in the hospital. Lots of bumps, lots of pain, the certainty that their Giro ended in the worst possible way.

In solidarity with the riders who run the Giro d'Italia, here we decided to tell the stages of the Giro d'Italia doing their same hard work: a letter per meter of altitude difference. Here is the story of the sixteenth stage, Piazzola sul Brenta-San Valentino, 203 kilometers and 4,900 meters of altitude difference, in 4,900 characters (spaces included).

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