Fortune’s pendulum could hardly have swung back quicker for UAE Team Emirates-XRG in the Giro d’Italia, as barely 72 hours after losing three riders to a mass crash in Bulgaria, Jhonatan Narváez seized the first opportunity in Italy to grab the win.
The first part of the Giro had been nothing less than horrendous for UAE Team Emirates, as the squad’s main GC hope, Adam Yates, as well as team powerhouses of the calibre of Jay Vine and Marc Soler, all had to leave the race.
That Narváez was the rider who took the victory was in itself a tale of redemption on an individual level as well as bringing a welcome boost to collective morale for UAE.
Narváez dwelt at length on the way that pro cycling can ruin even the best-laid of plans, or bring renewed hope to a team like UAE that just a few hours before looked to be on its knees in his post-race interviews on Tuesday.
Analysing the stage, Narváez pointed to how strongly Movistar had worked to try and dominate affairs, ripping half the peloton to shreds on the category 2 Cozzo Tunno and setting things up perfectly for their sprinter Orluis Aular, only for Narvaéz to outpower the Venezuelan in the sprint.
“They did a great job on a very hard stage, but then that’s cycling – I lost three teammates a few stages back, and then I won,” Narváez said. “It was the same thing in Australia. I could have done great things, done a good podium, but look at what happened there.
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