Vingegaard 2026 faster than Pantani 1998 on the Piancavallo climb. Although…

We immediately had the feeling that Jonas Vingegaard had gone very fast on the Piancavallo climb, where he took his fifth stage victory in this Giro. It was certainly the best performance of the Danish champion in the pink jersey: there was a 14.5 km climb (average gradient 7.8%, max 14% between the fifth and sixth kilometre, difference in altitude 1131 metres) and he tried hard. He attacked 11 km from the finish (never so far from the finish line, compared to the previous mountain stages) and inflicted on poor Felix Gall, second for the fifth time, the widest gap: 1’15”. This was the climb of Marco Pantani, who won at Piancavallo in the 1998 Giro and began his comeback on the favorite Zulle, to then win the Giro in Milan. Even then, as today, the stage was held on May 30th. Vingegaard was very fast, therefore, with a bit of tailwind at the end, but how much? Yes, the Dane went as fast as Pantani, indeed, according to a comparison between the television images of 1998 and those today, he would have taken three seconds less than the Pirate to reach the same point as the finish line of the 1998 stage: 36’17” versus 36’20” of the Romagna it was moved 700 meters forward compared to 1998, with a very fast final stretch on a slight slope.

diversity

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Cycling is not athletics, where the start and finish are always in the same point, and there are no official timings of the climbs: just move the start and finish lines by a few meters to get completely different data. Pantani climbed the Piancavallo climb which was 13.8 km long, and upon arrival the road was still climbing: Marco attacked almost immediately at the beginning, because he had to recover as many seconds as possible from Zulle who was 43″ ahead of him in the standings, and pushed hard until the finish line. Vingegaard, who had already won the Giro by a landslide, instead had a 14.5 km climb at his disposal: this is why we had to compare the TV images, go and watch the passage of the Dane where Pantani’s finish line was and use the stopwatch to have the most precise data possible. In any case, there remains evidence of a performance by Vingegaard of the highest value, which confirms him as the strongest climber in the group, on the level of the greats of all time.