Ultimately, after this Giro we can speak of Pogacar cycling. It's a formula: a world-class champion, out of category, out of reach, and everyone else far behind. This is how it was two years ago with Teddy, and the same this time with Vinge. The differences are marginal: six stages for the Slovenian, five (due to a gift to the devoted Kuss above Alleghe) for the Dane. One more detail, for the pedantic: Pogacar in pink on day two, Vingegaard much later, after halfway through the Giro. But the substance is the same: both play a different sport and live a different life, both win on one leg alone, both know nothing of the word crisis, both train in the best way for the Tour.

On a folkloric level, one can add that here in Vinge's Giro there's this additional element of monotony: the mountain finishes are printed in stencil. Four times the same podium: Vinge, Gall, Hindley. Always the same, always in line, without ever a hint of surprise or the unexpected. Him up front in solitude, behind him, in a line like the seven dwarfs behind Snow White, Gall and Hindley, always respectful of their positioning. With a very well-founded feeling: had they raced another hundred times, on another hundred mountains, it would have ended exactly the same way.

In the end, the real problem with this Giro isn't so much the crushing and tedious dominance of the phenomenon: when there is a phenomenon, the phenomenon puts things in order this way. See obviously also Teddy. In the latter case, the problem isn't Vinge, half a Vinge is enough to sweep the board: the problem is behind him, where one is worth the other, where no one ever seriously tried to attack (in a serious way), not certainly Vinge, but at least his direct rivals. I say in a serious way, because in alternating turns they lost ground and came back, or attacked for 10 seconds more or less, but never in three weeks did any of them really go away. Behind Vinge they played elastic, a bit back and a bit forward, but always very tightly bound together, equal rank and equal level, not excellent.

Inevitable notes for the future: whether or not one of the phenomena comes (unthinkable both), we still need to strengthen and bulk up the delegation of sparring partners. Nothing to say, nothing to take away from Gall and Hindley, with them alongside Gee and Eulalio, who have expressed their maximum, to exhaustion. But we need more and better. Just for example: at the Tour there will certainly be a Teddy-Vinge duel, maybe even Seixas, but right behind them are Evenepoel, Pidcock, Lipowitz, Ayuso, Del Toro himself, and so on. That is to say people who can anyway stir the waters, give battle, try something, in other words raise the level of the fight and competition, feeding different expectations every day and thus interest.

Of course, if the Giro continues to treat its guests this way, maybe leaving them on the last day to bask on the Grande Raccordo Anulare for an hour and a half, like the middle class office workers in the Ferragosto exodus, it will become increasingly difficult to convince teams to send their first-choice material.

Next year it could be Evenepoel's turn, after he's maybe convinced himself for the umpteenth defeat at the Tour, to keep the show going. But he'll need to be convinced with convincing arguments. And if it's not him, it will have to be at least a package of good people, capable of moving the race without maybe lining up like the seven dwarfs. Because in the end this is the real tedium of the 2026 Giro: not so much the dominance of a phenomenon, which by definition does its thing like in a private show, but the lack of a real fight, of daily hard-fought battles, behind him. When people say that if there's Teddy or if there's Vinge you race for second place, at least you should actually race for it, not passively defend the positions (and points) acquired along the way.

Let's end it here. Anyway, those in the corridors of power are only busy spreading via social media the fiction of another "great edition, a complete success, between two wings of crowds, never so many on the roads of the Giro". If they're happy, everyone's happy.

Whoever still has eyes to see (maybe to learn), after a warm goodbye to the Giro, is summoned for Saturday, July 4th, when the Tour will start. The real film of Pogacar cycling will be clearer and more convincing than what I mean to say in conversation. As long as we're still able to notice the differences. No intention to disparage and downgrade the Giro. Unfortunately there's no need. The facts speak for themselves, much more than virtual social media.