2021 season, Giro d'Italia, Grand Tours

Giro d’Italia 2021 : Stage 7 – Ewan fastest in the slowest stage ever

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On what is likely to be the most painful to watch and agonizingly slow stage (until the next one, of course) of this year’s Giro d’Italia, pocket rocket Caleb Ewan tallied up his second stage win on Stage 7 in his season-long hunt to win a stage at each grand tour. The (I was going to use an adjective here, but he’s kind of just basic, isn’t he?) Australian proved to be the fastest of the sprinters on the uphill finish, single-handedly chasing down an energetic Fernando Gaviria inside the final 500 meters before easily crossing the line ahead of all others. Davide Cimolai (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished second while Stage 2 winner, Tim Merlier (after reportedly suffering a Dumoulin), came home in third. In the general classification, Attila (is) The One (who) retains the maglia rosa with no changes to the top of the leaderboard.

Final KM

After the peloton enjoyed a sloooooooow day in the sunshine for much of the stage, the race kicked off in the final 10km as headwinds, clouds, and road furniture rolled in. The pace rapidly accelerated to a blistering 60kph as the likes of Jumbo-Visma, Qhubeka-Assos, and Lotto-Soudal fought for position in the approach for the final climb. Despite commentators’ best efforts to drum up excitement about potential time splits, the peloton remained together at the finish and Caleb Ewan showed his prowess!

Who Actually Won, Though?

Finish line cameras have been all the rage this year. Keeping with that theme, it’s time to play a new game as presented by VeloVoices: “Who Actually Won The Race?”

*Whispers* Tom Pidcock is the winner of all races henceforth.

Funnily enough, I had a dream about a finish line camera debacle earlier this week. It involved the placement of a blue strip of bar tape. I need more therapy, obviously. [Our employee benefits allows you to get free photo-finish therapy, Luke – ed]

Slower Than Molasses

If you managed to catch any of the day’s stage other than the final 10km, then you have my sincerest condolences. I watched the final 100km – ONE HUNDRED! – purely due to the fact that I found myself having drawn the short stick for today’s stage write-up. While I kept my Tiz feed (Hi, Euan!) on throughout the morning, it wasn’t until the race hit the 25km mark that I began paying full attention to it again. During those 75km, I managed to:

  • do a load of laundry,
  • make a batch of pancakes,
  • eat a batch of pancakes,
  • send emails,
  • think about more batches of pancakes,
  • complete a homework assignment.

Let’s find out what others did:

Some discussed who should be gifted an INEOS pin badge, which is an even more nonsensical marketing idea than Thibaut Pinot selling clothing. [Ahem! Luke, both Midge and I have Pinot tees. The tarp is looming with talk like that! – ed]

Others gave recommendations on how to spend my morning, such as folding the unfoldable fitted sheet. (Washing my bedding was the one thing I didn’t get accomplished during the stage.)

Perhaps best of all, Deceuninck-QuickStep and the official Giro Twitter accounts debated whether helicopters go “Tacatacatacataca” or “TOCTOCTOC.” Do you have a vote in this debate? If so, send it our way and we’ll be sure to debate it after we finish figuring out butter measurements! [It’s going to be a rip-roaring podcast on Sunday night, folks! – ed]

If you’ve gotten this far. . .

If you’ve gotten this far, bless your heart. I really don’t have all that much more to say, because again, this stage was more boring than a rest day with no other races happening. Nevertheless, your determination warrants a reward, so please enjoy some cute animal photos:

Ducklings in motion! 

Ps: If you don’t follow AC already, you’re missing out! Not only is she a phenomenal journalist, but she also runs a farm and posts fabulous farm content on a regular basis. I hate to break it to you, Thibaut, but you’ve got competition!

Even the Tour of Hungary is animal-friendly, it seems!

The Last Word

Results

Stage 7 Top 5 

1 Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) 4:42:12

2 Davide Cimolai (Israel Start-up Nation) same time

3 Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix) s.t.

4 Matteo Moschetti (Trek-Segafredo) s.t.

5 Andrea Pasqualon (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) s.t.

GC Top 10 

1 Attila Valter (Groupama FDJ) 26:59:18

2 Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck QuickStep) +0:11

3 Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) +0:16

4 Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) +0:24

5 Louis Vervaeke (Alpecin-Fenix) +0:25

6 Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Nippo) +0:38

7 Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) +0:39

8 Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) +0:41

9 Dan Martin (Israel Start-up Nation) +0:47

10 Simon Yates (Team Bike Exchange) +0:49

All the jerseys

Leader’s jersey Attila Valter (Groupama FDJ)

Points jersey Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal)

King of the Mountains Gino Mader (Bahrain Victorious)

Best Young Rider Attila Valter (Groupama-FDJ)

For full race reviews, go to cyclingnews.

Official race website: Giro d’Italia

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