Jonathan Vervenne had been expected to shine yesterday in the Rho time trial. Twice U23 Belgian national champion against the clock, he failed to leave his mark despite being one of the favorites. “To be honest, my preparation for shorter time trials is a bit lacking,” he admitted. Finishing 16th, 14 seconds behind winner Matthias Schwarzbacher, was certainly not the result he had hoped for.
Unfortunately for him, the Rho stage was the only individual time trial in this Giro Next Gen 2025 to make a difference. So today, in the 146 km from Rho to Cantù, he decided to create a time trial of his own. Initially, it was more of a two-man break, with Vervenne attacking from the first kilometers and spending a long stretch of the race alongside Swiss rider Ilian Alexandre Barhoumi (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Development Team).
Then, 62 km from the finish line, just before the first passage across the finish line in Cantù, Barhoumi misjudged his entry into a roundabout, and Vervenne didn’t wait for him. Instead, he upped the pace and never looked back. At that moment, the Soudal-QuickStep Development rider had just a 1’05” lead over the chasing peloton, but he still had plenty of energy in the tank, and in just a few kilometers the gap ballooned to 3 minutes.
With a tricky finish to interpret – the final 500 meters ramping up to 8%, intimidating the sprinters – no one in the Maglia Rosa group took on the responsibility of launching a full-blown chase. So Vervenne kept pushing and managing his effort, and when he still had a 1’10” advantage with 10 km to go, he knew that his 60 km solo attack might actually succeed.
And so it did: Vervenne won in Cantù and took the Maglia Rosa, while behind, 30 seconds back, the others could only battle it out for second place – a spot claimed by Aubin Sparfel (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Development), just ahead of Mirko Bozzola (SC Padovani Polo Cherry Bank). Tomorrow, the Belgian rider can enjoy his day in pink, but with the summit finish at Passo del Maniva looming, another major shake-up in the standings seems all but certain.
