Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) finished second on stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia at Corno alle Scale, 12 seconds behind Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), after his team spent the entire 184km stage from Cervia controlling the race to give their leader the best possible shot at the summit finish.
Gall gained time on every major GC rival except Vingegaard and consolidated third place overall, now 2:59 behind race leader Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) and 35 seconds behind the Dane.
The day looked like it would be an ideal stage for the breakaway. Every team bar one seemed to agree with that. The only exception was Decathlon-CMA CGM who controlled every move that went clear and, once the eight-man break formed, set a hard tempo on the front with Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen and Tord Gudmestad doing the bulk of the work to give Gall the best chance to go for the win and gain time on his rivals.
It didn't go entirely to plan as Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) along with Diego Ulissi (XDS-Astana) and Toon Aerts (Lotto-Intermarché) threw a spanner in the works on an uncategorised climb with about 60km to go. They bridged to the break and made a group of 11 riders. This eventually whittled down to two with Ciccone taking Einer Rubio (Movistar) away with him as the pace shot up behind.
Pedersen and Gudmestad continued to ride hard and thanks to that early discipline it meant that Gall arrived at the base of Corno alle Scale – 12.8km at 5.9% with gradients ramping into double digits over the final three kilometres – with his key mountain domestiques still fresh enough to work.
"I'm super happy, again, to show a super high level. And to only be beaten by Jonas." Gall said in his post-stage interview with Cycling Pro Net. "The team did an incredible job again all day long and yeah, it is nice to have a rest day tomorrow, for sure."
How Decathlon-CMA CGM set up Gall
Gregor Mühlberger and Callum Scotson drove the pace on the upper slopes of Corno alle Scale, thinning the GC group before Gall launched his attack. Only Vingegaard could follow. The Danish rider went solo in the final kilometre to take the stage win in 4:20:21, with Gall crossing the line at +0:12 and Davide Piganzoli (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) third at +0:34 on the same time as Thymen Arensman (Netcompany-Ineos) as Eulálio took fifth at +0:41.
The gaps behind showed the value of the day's work. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) lost 1:16 to Gall on the stage, a deficit that could prove decisive in the fight for the podium. Pellizzari now sits ninth overall at 5:15, while Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) is fourth at 4:32.
Gall took the race by the scruff of the neck when Pellizzari was dropped and his other rivals were faltering and launched. However, this wasn't the original plan. "I wasn't planning to attack myself," said the Austrian. "But then the steep part of the climb was a bit longer than it looked on paper. I wanted to make sure it was a really hard final for everybody and it worked, to only be beaten by Jonas is okay."
Decathlon CMA CGM sports director Luke Roberts had outlined the team's ambition before the race. "We want to reach the podium in the general classification with Felix Gall," Roberts said, identifying Mühlberger, Scotson and Johannes Staune-Mittet as mountain support riders who "will be invaluable in supporting him in the mountains," while Gudmestad and Pedersen would handle the flatter stages.
Stage 9 put that plan into action. The team used four domestiques across the day to help Gall isolate his podium rivals on the final climb. But he remains concerned by the upcoming time trial.
"That was in the back of my mind a bit today." Gall admitted. "To have a bit of a gap before the TT is not exactly my strength. I was working on it a lot for sure, but yeah, I think it is more about managing it and I am expecting to lose time on my opponents but I hope not too much."
Gall now holds a gap of more than 90 seconds over Hindley in fourth and over two minutes on Pellizzari in ninth, with the race's time trial and hardest mountain stages still to come.
Cover image credit: Gian Mattia D'Alberto / LaPresse
