Giro d'Italia, a breakaway mocks the sprinters in Milan. Controversy over time neutralisation

Let's take it for a laugh: just as there are no longer any seasons as there used to be, neither are there any sprints. The classic ones, with the 'trains' of the big teams controlling the race, catching any escapees and then launching their sprinters, a few hundred metres from the finish line, towards victory.

As was the case in the days of Mario Cipollini, Alessandro Petacchi or Elia Viviani himself, Olympic champion with great successes in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France.

Not to be incurable past-timers, that there is only to lose, but things in cycling are changing. That was evident in this fifteenth stage, Voghera-Milan, 157 kilometres that couldn't be flatter. It should have been the day of the sprinters, after the exertions in Val d'Aosta, one of those classic fractions where you already know how it's going to end. With the sprinters taking centre stage, the others watching. It should also have been Jonathan Milan's day, our number one sprinter so far still without a win. It should have been his day with the Milan public applauding the spectacle of the Giro d'Italia on a beautiful, almost summery hot day.

Instead, here comes the surprise. Four unknowns, at least to non-enthusiasts, at kilometre zero, as soon as the flag was lowered, set off in fourth, inventing a sensational breakaway that ended, after 155 kilometres, at an average of 51km/h with the victory of Norwegian Frederik Dversnes Lavik ahead of Mirco Maestri, Martin Marcellusi and Mattia Bais: a mockery within a mockery, both because the group, which desperately tried to catch up with the escapees in the final, was mocked, and because, with three Italians out of four, a Norwegian won. Like in a joke with the sun also at 34 degrees. Mirco Maestri, from Polti like Bais, almost started to cry. "After so much effort, it is angry not to win. But if we had been there to check each other, the group would have caught us up. Patience, it will be for next time,' concludes Mirco, who had already come second in the Giro.

But there is another 'yellow' that has crept into this sprinters' bad day. That of the neutralisation of times for the classification on the last lap of the circuit, instead of the usual three kilometres from the finish, demanded in the race by the leaders of the Giro, primarily by the pink jersey Jonas Vingegaard. In practice, for fear of crashes and various accidents, the riders managed to get the times frozen in the last 16 kilometres. In other words, if the pink jersey, Pellizzari or anyone else, had fallen on the last lap of the circuit, his place in the classification would not have changed by one second.