'I have to thank Pogačar' – Filippo Ganna lifts pressure with Giro d'Italia time trial win

Filippo Ganna was always likely to spend his afternoon at Desenzano del Garda in the hot seat. The only real question was whether his long vigil would end with a visit to the podium or a lonesome ride back to the Ineos hotel.

A week ago in Perugia, Ganna lost the Giro d’Italia’s first time trial on the stiff climb to the finish, but this time out, the Italian champion was on more amenable terrain. The flat final section of the course along the shore of Lake Garda was more suited to his gifts as a rouleur, while the finish area in Desenzano’s old port was dotted with friends, family and flags bearing the legend ‘Top Ganna.’

Ganna duly hurtled around the 31.2km course at an average speed of 53.419kph, a pace that put him firmly atop the early leaderboard. But the dogs in the street – among them, Ganna’s dog Mia, who made the trip from Verbania on Saturday with the rider’s parents – knew that his time was not necessarily beyond the current range of Tadej Pogačar, the last man down the start ramp.

The maglia rosa had delivered a supersonic display to win the Perugia time trial last week, and when he scorched through the first 7.8km with the quickest time here, four seconds instead Ganna’s, a worried murmur rippled through the denizens of the Ganna fan club gathered beyond the finish line. Across the street, meanwhile, a cheerful group of Slovenian fans raised a heart roar.

“When I watched his opening kilometres, I felt a lot of fear,” Ganna admitted afterwards. Those concerns began to recede by the second check after 23.2km, where Ganna now led by 10 seconds, but he still endured an anxious wait for Pogačar to finish his effort. Victory was only confirmed when the Slovenian had already entered the final 500m, with Ganna eventually taking the stage by 28 seconds.

Relief

Ganna’s relief at claiming the seventh Giro stage of his career, and his first since 2021, was palpable when he took a seat in the press conference truck afterwards. As Italian cycling’s biggest star of the post-Nibali era, Ganna bears a heavier burden of expectation than most at this race. His own tendency to allow his attention snag on the occasional criticism among the blanket praise of his home press surely only adds to that pressure.

In the opening week of the Giro, when his attack over the Capo Mele was thwarted within sight of the line in Andora, Ganna’s disappointment was such that he could summon up only the tersest responses for the journalists waiting outside the Ineos bus. On Saturday, by contrast, his first answer in the press conference was more than four minutes in length – longer, indeed, than his pursuit world record.

“Behind today’s win, there was a lot of work. These days, you make the difference in the small things. We worked in the wind tunnel, we tried to improve the position…” Ganna began. “In Perugia, on the fast sections, I was already able to go at the speed I wanted but there was that climb in the finale and there was also a boy in the maglia rosa…

“But I have to thank him because he motivated me day after day to try to win today. It seems easy from the outside – ‘Here comes a time trial and here comes a Ganna win.’ If only it were that simple… But winning here does make me a lot calmer. I’ll go to bed much more relaxed tonight, and I’ll wake up that way tomorrow, too.”

Ganna confessed that he had struggled to digest his defeat in Perugia, when he had led Pogačar by 47 seconds at the last check only for the race leader to summon up an astonishing final effort to deny him the spoils. The following day at Prati di Tivo, Ganna came home dead last, almost 40 minutes down, as heavy of heart as he was of legs.

“The day after Perugia, I was the first rider to get dropped and it might have been psychological as much as anything,” Ganna said. “Ok, maybe it was just an off day, but I ended up doing 160km in the gruppetto and that’s never easy.

“In the days since, I tried to save my energy as best I could for today and take out all the energy – positive and negative – on the pedals.  Today, the stage was only 32km, but I can assure you that it felt much longer, like a Milan-San Remo in my head.”

As Ganna had waited for Pogačar to finish, he was joined by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), who was waiting to mount the podium in the maglia ciclamino. On Friday evening, a report in BiciPro suggested tensions between the Italian pursuit teammates after Ineos had attacked while Milan had stopped for a natural break on stage 13. When Ganna’s victory was confirmed here, they presented a united front, with Milan embracing his compatriot.

“I had time to joke with Jonny,” Ganna said. “I told him he could sprint for 17 seconds and know immediately whether he’d won or lost. I had to wait two hours… I had to wait for the last rider.”

At the Paris Olympics this summer, Ganna and Milan will line up together in defence of their team pursuit title, but the Ineos man will seek a double of his own by taking aim at the time trial. His performance here suggested that he will be in the mix for gold on July 27, even if he was reluctant to dwell on the idea.

“We have another week of the Giro left,” Ganna said curtly. Until then, at least, the pressure is off.

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