Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) continues to amaze everyone, including himself, with uphill sprinting the latest addition to his long list of attributes.
The time trial world champion had already underlined his superiority against the clock with victory in the opening prologue at the Tour de la Provence, and had demonstrated his ability in the crosswinds in helping tee up Elia Viviani’s victory from a group of 25 on the opening road stage.
On Saturday’s stage 2, he was at it again, defending his leader’s jersey on the uphill drag to the line in Manosque, where he placed third behind Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl).
Ganna had already shown he has the watts to counter his 80 kilograms with his breakaway victory on a hilly stage of the 2020 Giro d’Italia, but Saturday’s finish was a much shorter, sharper effort. Finding himself on the front with 400 metres of the final 2km climb to go, he looked around and saw Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) opening up, and leapt into sprint mode.
Coquard stormed clear, and Alaphilippe pulled in front as they went either side of Latour, but third place was still way beyond his expectations.
“I’m completely destroyed today. To follow the guys that are here is really hard. To be in the front with some big guys like Lulu [Alaphilippe] is amazing,” Ganna said at the finish.
“I wanted to win the stage but there were two guys too strong for me.”
Ganna shouldn’t really have been sprinting at all. There was a question mark over Viviani given the nature of the finish and the hilly terrain in general, but it appeared perfect for Ethan Hayter, who had underlined his strength and form with second place in the prologue. However, both were dropped on the Col de l’Aire de Masco with 25km still to race.
Ganna might also have expected to be looking after Richard Carapaz in the finale, but the Ecuadorian - who was expected to compete for the overall title on Sunday’s big summit finish - did not start the stage after testing positive for COVID-19.
“This morning we woke up not really well after an intense day like yesterday but after long work from Salvatore Puccio on front of the bunch all day, it’s the maximum we can do to repay him for his efforts,” Ganna said.
Ganna now takes the black leader’s jersey into Sunday’s decisive stage, with its summit finish at Montagne de Lure. After bonus seconds were taken into account, his lead over Alaphilippe was halved to two seconds, with Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic) perhaps the strongest pure climber further down at 32 seconds.
Having previously dismissed any hope of winning the overall, Ganna is now Ineos’ only card and he said he’d be looking to ‘test’ himself on the 17km climb, which averages 6 per cent.
“I think it’s hard but we don’t start just to start - but to race, to try to arrive more close at the end,” Ganna said. “It’s also for me one test to see where I can arrive. But for sure there are climbers who can kill me on the climb.”
