A breakaway day at the Giro yesterday and Vingegaard was more than happy to let it play out. Michael Valgren took the glory, while the Dane conserved energy, avoided trouble and tightened his grip on the Maglia Rosa. He was also quite happy that his compatriot won.

With two brutal mountain stages still to come, that economy of effort matters — but so does what comes after.

“It would be nice to win another two stages here, but I don’t expect it,” he said. “There are two very hard mountain stages coming, and as I’ve said before, there is also a race in July I want to do. I also went pretty deep yesterday.”

“I don’t want to completely kill myself here if it’s possible not to,” he admitted.

I was quite impressed as I watched him attack from 6km out the other day, because, with almost 2 minutes lead, he could have waited til the last steep kilometer to go for the win – which he surely would have managed. But no, he smashed it. As I watched it I realised that this now is training for JV. His head is not completely at this Giro – it;’s somewqhere iun France, on a hillside next to an apparition of that Slovenian dude.

The Tour de France battle looms large.

It’s an audacious double attempt, to win both but not unprecedented. Tadej Pogačar pulled off the Giro-Tour double in 2024.

Apparently it is made of chocloate…

You feel that if Vingegaard takes this stellar form into July, and still gets beat, that that’ll be the end of this rivalry. Then, the Giro will be a nice memory but not much more. The Tour burns in the hearts of these true GC guys. JV has won two and it looked back then that he would win 5. Now however, it is Pogacar who stands on that precipice, and many onlookers would not bet against him winning 6.

Throw Seixas into the mix for le Tour and we may have a really great July to look forwrd to…