Michael Valgren has spent a career knocking on doors at the biggest races, and at 34, the vet Dane finally took a big dub in a Grand Tour. He had a brilliant move attacking when there was a lull in the finale. But just before the line, he reached back into his pocket to bring out a little something to add to his victory salute.
“I was still missing this one on my resume,” EF Education First’s Valgren said to Wielerflits. “I think I deserved this one.”
Valgren has won lots of big races. But in his long career the Dane had never taken a Grand Tour stage. That was, until Wednesday’s chaotic run to Andalo.
In the reduced finale, he was part of a select group that included Andreas Leknessund, Igor Arrieta, Einer Rubio, Damiano Caruso and Aleksandr Vlasov, all left to settle it between themselves after a messy, tactical final kilometre. And Valgren put on a master class in race tactics. He even seemed to be suffering just before then, but sometimes winning bike races is about the brain, not just the legs.
Behind him, fellow Scandinavian Andreas Leknessund took second. (Second…again. Is he becoming the 2023 Derek Gee-West of the Giro?) Damiano Caruso completed the podium after another hard day in the break.
It was also a quieter day for the Canadians, with Gee-West rolling in with the contenders. A bummer for Nickolas Zukowsky, he abandoned due to lingering rib pain after his crash in Milan.
“I’m very happy to be here. Fortunately I was finally able to book a stage win,” he said. “People say I’m very fast, but my maximum power is actually embarrassing. My trademark is to ride tactical finals when I have the legs.”
And by Georg Jensen, it played out exactly that way. The last few kilometres were a classic stop-start chess match on wheels. Nobody was quite willing to commit until it was too late. Valgren read it cleanly and launched when it mattered. And just like that, he got a gap. Everyone else was too busy looking at each other. A classic way to win.
“It was a very strange day, with a large group. In the final we really raced,” he said. “At one point I ran out of food and was afraid that I would get a hunger pang, but fortunately that didn’t happen anymore.”
But the detail that stood out most wasn’t just the win. It was the finish-line celebration. Valgren reached into his back pocket and grabbed a Pokéball, with Leknessund charging in for second. We’ve seen lots of weird things show up over the years when riders…
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