Jonas Vingegaard did not hide from the result. The Visma-Lease A Bike leader, who had entered Stage 10 of the Giro d'Italia as the favourite to take the maglia rosa from Afonso Eulalio, finished 13th in the 42-kilometre Tuscan time trial - three minutes down on stage winner Filippo Ganna - and was direct in his assessment afterwards.
"It was terrible," Vingegaard told reporters at the team bus, the disappointment evident in his face. The two-time Tour de France winner had not expected to challenge Ganna on a course like this, but the Visma team's pre-stage planning had assumed Vingegaard would put significant time into Eulalio and a handful of other rivals on the rolling Tuscan parcours. The numbers did not come close to expectations.
The day was meant to be decisive. Before the stage Vingegaard sat 1:32 behind Eulalio on general classification. The Bahrain-Victorious rider had defended the lead since taking it on Stage 3 and had survived the brutal weekend of mountain stages on the Blockhaus that many predicted would dislodge him. The flat time trial was widely viewed - even by Eulalio's own team - as the point at which the maglia rosa would change hands.
Instead, Eulalio rode the course almost a minute faster than Vingegaard. The Bahrain-Victorious team's time trial preparation, often overlooked in a peloton dominated by the Visma and UAE squads, has been a quiet strength of their Grand Tour project for two seasons. The decision to drill specific position work with Eulalio in the off-season has now paid off in the most consequential way.
For Vingegaard, the gap to pink has stretched from 1:32 to just 27 seconds. That is the kind of margin he would normally expect to take back on a hard mountain day. But the calendar between here and Rome is more compressed than it looks. Stages 11 and 12 are not summit finishes. The big mountain showdowns come later in the third week, and they are stages on which Eulalio - a strong climber with significant Grand Tour experience - is unlikely to crack catastrophically.
The bigger story is what the time trial says about Vingegaard's current form. The Visma team has insisted throughout the spring that the Dane was building toward a peak in late May, not coming into the Giro at his absolute best. Stage 10 supports that narrative. Vingegaard has not been catastrophic - his Stage 7 attack on the Blockhaus was vintage - but he has not had a single ride that approached the dominance he showed at the Tour de France in 2024.
The next few days will be critical. Vingegaard needs to take time on roads that do not normally favour him. Stage 11 to Chiavari includes punchy climbs and a Red Bull KOM 12 kilometres from the line, the kind of terrain that suits Spanish puncheur Igor Arrieta or Eulalio himself. If the gap to pink does not move on Stage 11, Vingegaard's options for the final week shrink quickly.
"We have to keep believing," the Dane told reporters before leaving the press area. "There is still time, but I have to ride better than that."
