After the disruption of 2020, the first Grand Tour of the cycling season, the Giro d’Italia, marked a return to something approaching business as usual, with Egan Bernal of Team Ineos taking victory. In spite of a couple of glitches in the final week, Bernal fended off late challenges from Damiano Caruso and Simon Yates, largely thanks to the strength of the team with the biggest budget in cycling. For Ineos, the race marked a return to the dominant, steamroller style which has now won them 12 Grand Tours in the last 10 years. Through Bernal and one of their strongest team riders, Filippo Ganna, they led the Giro for 16 of the race’s 21 stages and that display of collective strength was concluded in Sunday’s time trial into Milan where Ganna took his second stage win of the race after his victory in the opener in Turin, in spite of a puncture. Bernal’s victory marked a welcome return to form for the Colombian, winner of the 2019 Tour de France, but forced out of last year’s edition of the race due to a back injury. This was a slow-burn victory where he took a slender lead on stage nine’s summit finish at Campo Felice and built gradually on that at every opportunity, most notably in stage 11 across Tuscany’s dirt roads – where Ganna’s support was instrumental – before striking the killer blow on Monday’s curtailed stage through the Dolomites to Cortina. In the final tough run of mountain stages he was shaken by Yates and Caruso, with his sudden collapse in the final kilometres of Wednesday’s climb to Sega di Ala giving initial room for doubt about his form. The ship was steadied on Friday and Saturday’s mountain top finishes, however, where the Lancastrian and the Italian took well-deserved stage wins to claim their podium places. The 24-year-old Colombian owed much to teammate and countryman Dani Martínez, signed by Ineos over the winter, who managed fifth place overall even while supporting Bernal. The defining image of the race, for many, will remain that of Martínez, fist clenched, turning to encourage his team leader as he struggled to the finish at Sega di Ala. Martínez was instrumental when Caruso staged a long-range attack over the Splugen pass on Saturday’s mountain stage. Together with the Spaniard Jonathan Castroviejo, he ensured that Caruso’s lead never went over a minute during his escape of roughly 50 kilometres; while it was Martínez who put in the accelerations that dislodged Yates on the ascent to the finish and enabled Bernal to close to within 25sec of Caruso. That gained significance on on Sundaywhen the Italian chopped 30sec off his deficit; without Martínez’s assistance the previous day, the final 30km into Milan would have been a far more stressful affair for Bernal. A quietly consistent support rider, albeit one with three Grand Tour top 10 finishes to his name, Caruso stepped into the gap left by his leader at Bahrain-Victorious Mikel Landa, who crashed out early on; at 33 years of age, the Italian’s stage victory on Saturday was the first major win of a career that started back in 2009. He was one of 13 riders who will remember this Giro for their first stage win in a Grand Tour; this is a large number for any recent edition of cycling’s “Big Three” stage races, reflecting a more open, aggressive edge to the racing in the time of Covid. Yates was handicapped by a relatively quiet opening two weeks to a race that he had specifically targeted, and his challenge fell flat in Monday’s stage to Cortina, where he lost a large part of his eventual 4min 15sec deficit to Bernal. However, he has finally laid the ghost of his epic defeat to Chris Froome in 2018, and should return stronger and wiser to a race that should remain within his reach for several years. The same can be said of his fellow Lancastrian Hugh Carthy, who faded in the final week, but still placed eighth overall, following on his third place in last year’s Tour of Spain. Bernal will not race the Tour de France this year, but this week the Criterium du Dauphiné will give an indication of the fitness of Ineos’s probable Tour leaders Geraint Thomas and Tao Goeghegan-Hart, who – together with Chris Froome – are in search of Great Britain’s eighth win in the race since 2011. In the opening stage starting and finishing in the Auvergne town of Issoire, won by the Belgian Brent van Moer, all three finished safely in a peloton reduced to just 80 in number over a hilly course.