The riders' faces as they reached the finish line of stage 14 of the Giro d'Italia said more about the pain and suffering of the day than the minutes and seconds they had lost to Jonas Vingegaard
The Dane was all smiles on the podium as he savoured his third stage victory of the race and was especially happy to have taken the first maglia rose of his career. His Visma-Lease a Bike teammates had controlled the race and chased down the break before he attacked and distanced everyone as expected.
As the crowd at the Pila finish stood on their toes to take photographs of the new race leader, other emotions were on show in the shadows of the many VIP stands. Vingegaard's GC rivals finished almost one by one, divided by heavy chunks of seconds or even minutes. Everyone had been defeated but some had defended a podium place, limited losses and even performed better than expected.
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The likes of Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) were proud but realistic, knowing he had protected his possible podium spot but aware that Vingegaard was on another planet.
Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) lost the maglia rosa but was rightly proud of his ride and is still second overall at 2:26. Gall is third at 2:50.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe duo Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari had bounced back from illness and rode strongly together on the climb to climb up the GC, with Hindley now fifth at 3:43 and Pellizzari sixth at 4:22.
Thymen Arensman (Netcompany Ineos) lost 1:23 and finished behind his Red Bull rivals but is fourth overall at 3:03.
Everyone had lost more time, the placings in the top ten shuffling yet again. Ben O'Connor (Jayc AlUla) was the big loser. He cracked early, even before Vingegaard's attack and lost 2:55. He was in no mood to discuss his bad day and quickly disappeared back down the road.
Michael Storer (Tudor) was satisfied after holding his seventh place despite an early stage crash. He was not keen to descend to the team bus along the same 16.6km roads packed with fans that he had just climbed. He wanted to use the chairlift, but his team staff saw it differently.
Teammate Mathys Rondel was close to tears after thinking he had underperformed but the talented young Frenchman actually moved up to 11th at 6:58.
159 riders eventually finished the stage, with Cristian Scaroni XDS-Astana the only DNF. Nobody finished outside the 51:16 time limit, but some sprinters cut it close.
Dylan Groenwegen and two Unibet Rose Rockets teammates finished in 45:27, but at least they live to fight another day and probably Sunday's sprint in central Milan.
Gall sat in a fold-up team car in the shadows, trying to recover from his huge effort.
"I'm happy to again be at a high level, despite suffering in the heat," he said.
"I was never near Jonas, and now I lost 49 seconds, there's no shame in accepting that.
"The podium is the objective for the three weeks. There's no point in thinking of beating Jonas, it's more for targeting the podium for me. I can only do my best every day."
Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) was dropped with O'Connor but fought to limit his losses and is ninth, 5:41 down on Vingegaard, and half that from a podium spot.
"It was a really hard day on the legs," he said.
"I like to do my own pace and sometimes that is just off the pace of the others. I just didn't have the legs to be right up there."
Gee-West's comments captured everyone's feeling on the day Vingegaard and Visma took control. There is a real sense of reality that the fight for pink is over but the fight for the podium has only just begun.
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