After just three stages, here comes the first outburst: "I don't understand why no one has tried anything".

A direct and heavy accusation towards the many teams that, without classification interests, turn the other way during stages that call for breakaways, attempts, and attacks. And entertainment, of course, which doesn't hurt.

Let me clarify: this time it's not me, who has already raised the (at least) orange alert about a Giro ridden half-heartedly by foreigners, except obviously Roglic and Ayuso who want to win it. No, this time the outburst comes from the boss, Mauro Vegni, which is not something to be underestimated: it doesn't happen often that the host publicly and dramatically slaps his guests in the face. This alone explains the atmosphere and the gravity of the situation. Houston, we have a problem: the Giro is not rolling. It's too little, too small, too limp.

Too early to say? Absolutely true. But pay attention, we can look at it another way, in light of the famous saying that you can tell a good day from the morning. If this is the approach from the start, nowadays in sports they say they're "approaching" with this debauched languor, just imagine how it'll be going forward, with increasing difficulty and effort.

Pangloss, the perpetual optimist, always sure of living in the best of all possible worlds, will say: there are not yet elements to worry about, enough with the defeatism, enough with this snobby pose of always shooting down the Giro. Naturally, I turn it all to Vegni, the prime and main recipient of the message, the first to be concerned.

And yet, so that Pangloss doesn't always triumph, we must grant Vegni and "Vegnism" a first X-ray that speaks for itself: two easy flat stages and a short time trial, nothing special, just the bare minimum, and yet we already have a hundred riders over ten minutes behind and eighty more than twenty minutes back. Come on, even trying to see it through rose-colored glasses, it's not serious. Are they just bad? Please, nowadays the average level is extremely high, we say it every other minute: the truth is they're racing out of office duty, trying to exert themselves as little as possible, with other things on their mind. And they're certainly not approaching the Giro with tiger eyes: they endure and tolerate it with a depressing whine. The sooner we all realize this, the sooner we might invent some solutions (I repeat my favorite: force the top twenty in the world ranking to do two grand tours, not always the same two, perhaps greasing the will with higher fees and prizes).

As for Vegni, many in the caravan say he was wrong to blow up. That a director shouldn't air dirty laundry in public, but speak directly in private with managers and riders. It's not the way, it's not the style. However, I want to say that sometimes the moment comes to raise your voice, especially when you realize they're making a fool of you. And we're at that point.

Whether he's right or wrong to blow up in public is sincerely his own matter. But it remains understood that Vegni should also look better, noting how after all the favorite Roglic is doing his job and, even before that, how this start has fully revealed the greatness of Pedersen, not just any nobody, but a sumptuous jet-man who holds up very well even in the suffered phases of the nervous route. A true and great pink jersey in the first phase of the Giro, not just pizza and figs.

Vegni, cheer up: try to think what if not even Pedersen had taken the Giro seriously. Try to think what if none of the big names like Roglic had even come. Try to think about it, maybe the temptation to take the group in the opposite direction will pass.