Shades of Indurain

A headline like that isn't an easy thing to say. I mean, we're talking about a man who has won the Tour de France five times, the Giro twice and both of them in the same year on those two occasions, but comparing the style of ride alone, watching Ryder Hesjedal go up that final climb in today's Giro stage and put the hurt into his rivals, was very Indurain-esk.

Indurain was renowned for being a man who would destroy his opposition when the time-trials rolled around and then mark them over the mountains to win yet another Tour. It wasn't always the most entertaining way to win, but what he could also do was leave his rivals spilling off his back wheel as he set out to limit his losses to someone up the road. It was a display of power rarely seen in the sport before or since.


Then today, Hesjedal decided that he needed to claw some time back on race leader Joaquim Rodriguez who had spent the majority of the climb marking the Canadian's back wheel but not attacking for the added time gap that many feel he would need for Sunday's time-trial. Hesjedal was meant to contain the climbers ahead of Sunday, but instead he accelerated after a jump by Michele Scarponi and nobody else could follow. He went to the front and like Indurain did with his rivals, rode Scarponi off his wheel as Rodriguez and in particular Ivan Basso grew smaller in his rear view mirror.

The Canadian powered his way up the remainder of the climb, falling just 19 seconds short of catching race winner Roman Kreuziger. Hesjedal finished second on the day and laid down a huge gauntlet for the weekend ahead. Everyone had expected him to find today hard but instead he hammered a real confidence blow into his opponents. Rodriguez recovered near the top to finish 13 behind Hesjedal, but what should have been a day for the Spaniard to increase his lead was a day that it feel to just 17 seconds.

How Hesjedal recovers here is anyone's guess, but make no mistake about it, all of them were feeling it limit today and all of them are going to need a good rest tonight.