After taking his second summit finish victory in three days at the Giro d'Italia and gaining yet more time on all his opponents, there was a telling moment in Jonas Vingegaard's post-stage press conference, when the Visma-Lease a Bike rider was asked if he'd start to save energy for the Tour de France as soon as he takes the pink jersey on Tuesday's time trial.
When answering, Vingegaard opted to ignore the idea that he'll automatically be in the lead after the one individual time trial of the 2026 Giro, even if current maglia rosa Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) seemed to have accepted that his time in pink has a definite sell-by date.
But as that question about the Tour de France showed, the overwhelming feeling at the Giro d'Italia was that the 2026 race was Vingegaard's to lose. If his triumph on the Blockhaus came with a somewhat narrower advantage on Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) than expected, 48 hours later at Corno delle Scale, the only wobble Vingegaard experienced all day was when he slightly fluffed his victory salute and his bike swerved underneath him as he crossed the line.
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Nor was the 50th win of his career, a landmark for any rider, one that Vingegaard was overwhelmingly interested in taking on Sunday, he said. Rather - and it's yet another sign of how comfortably he and Visma-Lease a Bike are dominating the Giro - when the team approached the lower slopes of the Corno delle Scale, the gap on the break was small enough to make going for the triumph feasible.
Cue one clinically-executed series of accelerations to shred the group as and when needed, then after Gall made his attack, Vingegaard was easily able to follow him then drop him as and when he wanted. That Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's GC challengers were on an off-day and Giulio Pellizzari lost nearly 1:30 was another big gain. But in some ways, such is Vingegaard's domination of the GC, that felt almost incidental.
"Today we wanted to be more defensive, we are already one man down in the race, and the team used up a lot of energy in Blockhaus stage," Vingegaard explained, noting Wilco Kelderman's abandon with injuries.
"But then Decathlon were pulling all day to get the break back, we went at a hard pace at the start of the climb because that was better for me, so we could go for the win.
"Felix attacked, luckily I was able to follow and I could attack him later."
Cue the career achievement for Vingegaard, something he agreed is a real milestone.
"For sure, 50 wins is a lot for me and something I'm super-happy about. I also got to take a second stage victory in the Giro, so it was a good day for us."
Vingegaard's options on a third stage win are high in Tuesday's time trial, although he will have to take on the out-and-out time trial specialists like Filippo Ganna (Netcompany Ineos) on a flat course along the Tuscany coastline. His main objective, he said, would be to get as big an advantage on his rivals as possible, and rather than thinking about the Tour, "for now I'm taking it on the day-by-day and focussing on the Giro".
At 42 kilometres, the time trial is unusually long for a Grand Tour these days. In fact, the last time Vingegaard raced that kind of distance against the clock was in the Tour de France in 2022, when he gifted the stage win to teammate Wout van Aert.
However, he once again avoided any comparisons with the Tour saying, "this one is actually quite different because that was more over rolling hills and technical, this one is just flat. But I'll do everything I can to do it as well as I can".
Meanwhile, Vingegaard goes into the second part of the Giro d'Italia 2:24 behind Eulálio and 35 seconds ahead of his closest rival Gall - who lost another 12 seconds in the terrain that favours the Austrian mountain specialist the most - and with the rest of the field steadily shedding time. On top of that, Vingegaard's young Italian teammate Davide Piganzoli placed an excellent third on the stage, with Sepp Kuss making it home in eighth, and giving Visma three riders in the top ten.
"I'm very happy Piganzoli got third, he's a great guy," Vingegaard said. "And we've got a good situation for GC, too. For now, everything is where we want it to be."
But for all Vingegaard's dutiful trotting out of the 'day-by-day' answers when it comes to his goals in the Giro, it was also telling, too, that when he was asked what victory in Rome in two weeks time would mean to him, Vingegaard also had his reply ready for that, too.
"If I were able to win the Giro, in my opinion, for me [it would mean] a complete career, to be honest," Vingegaard, already victorious in the Vuelta a España and twice in the Tour de France, said. "To have won all three Grand Tours, it would be a dream for me."
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