DURRES (Albania) – Vendrame is keeping us waiting. Half the team has already returned, but the Venetian of the Decathlon-Ag2R he preferred to stretch out together with two other companionsThe Sol Tropikal Durres is the meeting place of several teams. Next to the French vehicles there is the Tudor Pro CyclingFurther ahead we see Jayco-AlUla, then Bahrain Victorious, Alpecin-Deceuninck, and Israel-Premier Tech. The weather is mild, to say the least. Driving from Tirana to here we had the feeling of moving from Catania towards Ragusa: on the right, only Etna was missing. Although, returning towards the capital, the mountains behind it have a certain Bassano-like quality. It's hard to decipher the landscapes, At first glance it is better to focus on the "imaginative" traffic dynamics Albanian language.
Then comes Vendrame, last met at the Tirreno-Adriatico when he won the Colfiorito stage, who last year left the Giro with the good taste of victory of Sappada. The approach had the small hitch of an illness that prevented him from running the RomandieBut now we're here and everything seems fine. I wonder if he pushed himself because the first stage was titillating him, or if he needed to push himself harder...
“Nothing changes,” he nods. “What’s done is done. I know I'm well and as my grandmother always said: health is what matters.Last year we arrived with a competitive team for O'Connor in the overall standings. This year we've changed the vision of running and will have more eyes on sprints with BennettThen there will be days when you can try to win with me, perhaps in the stages with long-distance breakaways, and with climbers like Prodhomme and Bouchard. We know the Giro quite well, We are an experienced group, we are not tied to a captain so we will run free."
After your victory at Tirreno and also after Sappada, you said those were stages you'd already scored. So, how many stages of this Giro would Vendrame like?
I studied the route, honestly there are stages. I've spotted four, I don't want to spot more.Ever since I became a professional, I've tried to identify the four most suitable stages in a Grand Tour and then try to win them along the way. And so there are four this year too.
Obviously you won't tell us even under torture, right?
I've always been a bit superstitious about not revealing anything, perhaps the most obvious one is the one with the dirt roads that will be tempting for many. However, I'm from the middle of the Giro onwardsMy luck lies in recovering well, the ability to emerge as the Giro progresses. The target stages this year are in the second week, the third one is unfortunately really challenging, so I assume it will be more of a battle between the top-seeded men. But, never say never, we always leave the doors open.
What could happen differently?
It is not yet known how it will go, if the Giro will have a master like Tadej last year, who perhaps earns a lot in the first part and then manages. Or if they leave the jersey to another team to manage, as happened with us last year at the Vuelta and in that case more opportunities for escapes were created. The fact is that in recent years I have seen a trend in the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta where very few breakaways occur.
Did you count them?
It's getting more and more difficult. Last year I did a calculation and I only saw four escapes at the finish line. Taking away the time trials and sprints, you can clearly see that very few of them remain.
Coincidentally, four is also the number of stages you circled…
But it's not easy, also because now the group knows my ability to hit the mark when I'm on the run and it's starting to get heavy, because perhaps the sports directors invite people not to collaborate, for example. I remember that some commentators who did a sort of comparison with By gendt, which when he was on the run, 90 percent of the time he arrivedI may not be at that level, but that's my target in a race like the Giro.
Once you've identified the four stages, do you continue studying them or do you put them aside and then live day by day?
My relationship with the journey is always the same. I prefer to study it thoroughly a few days before leaving, after which I live it step by step.. Also because in a 21-stage Giro, the condition can change. Maybe it happens the day your body responds well and the days it responds badlyI prefer to live day by day. Last year, I had set my sights on the Rapolano Terme stage, won by Pelayo Sanchez over Alaphilippe. I was in the breakaway too, but I started feeling sick and ultimately didn't achieve anything. I had planned another one, but I was battling bronchitis, and that too fell through. And in the end I focused everything on the last available stop, which was Sappada, the fourth one I had circled.. So it's good to study every day, but be careful not to let yourself be influenced by the current situation.
Once you're in the breakaway, do the circled stages go as you imagined?
Almost never, for this reason the best thing is to improviseI'm referring to the Sappada stage. I didn't expect the breakaway to take so long to emerge. I thought he would leave immediately, not that he would leave in San Daniele del Friuli after 50 kilometersSo I was forced to change my plans and reset myself. I realized he wasn't going to start and that at that point we had to wait for San Daniele. I knew it was another strategic moment, and in fact the breakaway happened there. Sometimes you make so many plans, but they never come true.So I prefer to improvise and leave everything to fate.
