Lidl certainly did their math right, a theorem that nothing and no one can dismantle, they explain it openly to me in the morning on the seafront in Praia, "it was decided back in January that in this Giro we would race for Milan, everything follows from that...". And Ciccone's pink jersey, an Italian in pink at the Giro d'Italia? A shrug of shoulders, an unwritten statement, but rather eloquent: we don't care, it wasn't in the plans, it will go as it must go.

Rigid and orthodox team, rigorous and unmodifiable programs. And so it is. And so the Italian nation, in May with grandmothers and aunts in front of the television, gets this endless torment of the Italian pink jersey drifting adrift, kilometer after kilometer, alone like a dog, under the downpour, in the impenetrable and dark forests of Basilicata. The team? They have other programs, they have other things on their mind, Milan's sprints (all lost so far) and Gee's classification. And Ciccone? Ciccone should think about the stages, if he can manage. Not about the pink jersey. And if he's wearing it, he should throw it off as quickly as possible.

Logical and respectable corporate philosophy, nothing to object to. But rigid. Actually, very rigid. To the aunts and grandmothers, but also to me, one question remains in mind: how is it that in winter programs that foresee everything, unpredictability of the race, unpredictability of life, is never foreseen? Consequently: is it really not admissible to have a bit of elasticity and flexibility, in this case perhaps a couple of men up front with Ciccone to hold the jersey until the Blockhaus, where he would have presented himself in regal fashion before his people in Abruzzo.

I know, the technical staff silences me with compassion. The technical staff is inflexible and merciless, it cannot allow itself changes and modifications during the race. So: the pink jersey goes to Eulalio after the stage of madness and long live the great Giro d'Italia of the domestiques.

But I have a "but" I'm holding tight. And to this idea of a rigid team I immediately oppose a complete idea of an elastic and flexible team, currently racing at the complete opposite end of Ciccone's Lidl. I speak without problems, without fear of being called a sellout, of the UAE. I want to say it all: it's an incredibly rich team, it has the most phenomenal phenomenon ever, it could live off the dividends of the soloist's feats, yet it never misses an opportunity to carve out its prestige as a true team. Here at the Giro we're witnessing something exceptional, which would deserve only applause and sympathy, if not for the constant small envy of the small-minded. In the early hours of the Giro the UAE loses three very strong riders, captain Yates and two domestiques like Vine and Soler. Just a tear, just legitimate anger for a moment. Then, as is customary and as it should be, at least where values circulate alongside money, immediately turning the page. Nothing is finished, we're five, objectives change and tactics change, but we won't be the ones to comfortably lock ourselves in regret, tomorrow is another day and we start again in another way. Matxin and Baldato, at the bus, every morning talk about the stage as if it were always a final. And the results are staggering. In Cosenza you see an irresistible Christen, a childlike energy that entertains on its own, certainly a bit mad, at the back of the group only to find him at the front taking seconds at the intermediate sprint, then back in the rear before seeing him attack as a finisher in the last kilometer, coming within a hair of the stage-jersey double, and anyway since he can't make it here comes Narvaez's intervention to secure the victory. So, the next day, from Praia to Potenza. Still five of them, but they seem like fifty. Narvaez in the breakaway, then here comes Arrieta, who with Eulalio gets up to all sorts of tricks, but in the end goes on to win as UAE, two in two days, an incredible double of the magnificent unlucky ones. But also of elasticity and flexibility, values never surpassed by technique and progress. I'm not even asking myself how a rigid team would have reacted losing three riders in the first few kilometers of the Giro (I imagine, at random: what do you want, the programs were all for Yates, in five where do you want to go, we arrive in Rome and goodbye to home). I'll close here the ifs and buts, I'm holding tight to the only true spectacle of these first stages, the valiant reaction of the UAE and its five survivors. Guys, this isn't surviving: it's taking life by the horns, life and its dirty tricks, to transform the pranks of destiny into occasions of glory. Standing ovation to the Baldato gang, who could take a vacation, who instead are keeping the Giro afloat. Here I say it and here I don't deny it. And then of course, as a sellout and servant of the powerful, I go to administration to collect my petrodollars from the sheikhs, as everyone knows well.