Italian hat-trick in Valentine's Day. Carapaz attacks, pink jersey struggles to defend itself

The big favourite, Primoz Roglic, worn down by bad weather and crashes, retired, leaving room for Pellizzari, his domestique, who in fact took advantage of this by taking third place behind the two Astana boys. Then there is the new crisis of Ayuso, another favourite, who will arrive 16 minutes late.

But even in the pink jersey, the young Isaac Del Toro, the first cracks could be seen. For the first time in a fortnight, the Mexican ended up on the ropes due to a violent attack by Richard Carapaz. On the final climb of St. Valentine's Day, the Ecuadorian took flight with a sudden acceleration. At the finish, he finished fourth, but in the classification he gnawed off more than a minute and a half, making himself a candidate for the overall victory.

Simon Yates also came out well, snatching almost a minute from the pink jersey. The Englishman is second at 26 seconds. Carapaz is instead third at 31". Another surprise was the stainless Damiano Caruso, fifth at over two and a half minutes. Precipitating instead at four minutes, his captain, Antonio Tiberi, again in crisis after the bad day in Gorizia. Antonio was aiming for the podium, but seems cut off. Behind him, in strong growth, there is instead Giulio Pellizzari, third at the finish line, finally freed from the bond of loyalty to Roglic.

"Did you see that we Italians can do it too? Now I'm going to try to win a few stages,' says Giulio, smiling.

In short, the mountains have reopened the Giro. And we are only at the beginning. Today there is the Mortirolo, Saturday the Colle delle Finestre. Del Toro will hardly be able to defend the pink jersey. Perhaps he spent too much beforehand. Or perhaps because of his young age (21) he is not yet ready for the big climbs of the last week. The impression is that veterans like Yates and Carapaz will now emerge, especially the Ecuadorian, already in the pink in 2019, and very brilliant when the road climbs.

Returning to Christian Scaroni and Lorenzo Fortunato, and their victory in the name of friendship, Christian's story is also striking. Left without a team due to Gazprom's withdrawal from competition, he was about to give up cycling. 'Yes, I had a bad time. I went through some dark moments,' Scaroni says. 'That's why I still can't realise what happened. It seems like a dream to me. Lorenzo and I had made a pact. To me the stage, to him the climber's blue jersey. A pact kept, because Lorenzo showed himself to be a man of his word, a real man. In life, and in sport, if you put your mind to it, things come back to you in the end. But I still don't believe it..."