You may not have seen much of Nico Denz during the Giro d’Italia until he took his solo stage 18 victory. Under the sunny skies of Cesano Maderno, Northern Italy, the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe man rode away from his breakaway companions with a clever, perfectly-timed attack. Once Denz got the gap, he tucked into his aero position and time-trialled to the finish line, where dense crowds of screaming fans awaited him. He celebrated with gusto and the cameras flashed, microphones were thrust towards him and the podium champagne waited to be sprayed. But this is only a small snippet of the story.
What has not been in the spotlight on our television screens before stage 18 is the work Denz has done leading up to this moment. When his teammate and general classification hopeful Primož Roglič was still in the bike race, the German rider had been duly, unwaveringly at the service of his leader. Denz was Roglič’s bodyguard in bunch sprints, he had his nose in the wind in flat parts of stages, keeping the former Giro winner protected and out of trouble. This was his job, and he was happy to do it. This is who Nico Denz is.
“Nico is a really good person. Off the bike he is so relaxed and on the bike he’s serious and professional. Whatever you ask to him to do, he will do. You can trust him no matter what. Maybe it’s not seen on television but me and Nico have worked from day one,” Denz’s teammate, Jan Tratnik told Rouleur after the race.
“Working like that causes tiredness so you take rest wherever you can, but when you have the GC leader you need to be around him all the time and don’t have much chance for it. Primož will be proud of this victory and to see how we still race together as a team, no matter what.”
Denz’s visible emotion when he crossed the line was a culmination of the rollercoaster he and his team have been on to get to this point. His hugs and tears came after the loss of Jai Hindley earlier in the race, then the crashes and injuries of Roglič, all of which have tested each rider’s mental fortitude and the general morale of the squad.
“I’m not winning everyday, so every victory is special. After all the setbacks we had for this Giro, this one is emotional. It’s really important for us. This is the 300th victory in the team’s history and that a rider like me – a domestique – gets it, I feel really proud,” Denz commented in his post-race press conference.
“It just shows that the team is so impressive to switch after a massive loss. It wasn’t just a rider going home, it was also a dream going home. A lot of work that we did up front was for nothing, if you decide to just be sad about it then you are sad and get nothing but we decided to fight, like we’ve done on the last days, and we will continue to do.”
The 31-year-old made his winning move with just 17 kilometres of the 144km stage remaining – the moment came when Denz noticed a lack of cohesion in the breakaway group and was prepared to take a risk on some technical corners. He explained that, after what his team had suffered in this Giro so far, he had “nothing to lose.” This was the key to him having the ambition to attack when he did.
“I already felt before that the group didn’t work well together, for example Daan Hoole was sitting on the back skipping turns and others were trying to hide themselves. When I came through this corner I noticed that I had a small gap so I just went. I think [Nicola] Conci was on my wheel. I saw that if he couldn’t close the gap straightaway he would swing out and they would all look at each other,” Denz said afterwards. “I was gambling on this to give me a shot and it worked.”
He added that he hadn’t assessed the parcours of stage 18 ahead of the race, avoiding any temptation to go for his own results, knowing that he had been brought to the race by Red Bull to ride purely as a domestique: “At the start of the Giro the goal was GC. I appreciated that and I was okay with that. I did all the preparation for this common goal so I didn’t look into any stage which could suit me, I only did that when Primož left the race and the DS told me stage 18 could be for me and asked what I thought. I knew I wouldn’t go on Mortirolo or Finestre so it had to be 18.”
In the end, Denz stage win is for the workers. It was a rare instance in cycling where one of the many riders who tirelessly sacrifices their own chances snatches some time in the spotlight. In the next two mountain stages, Denz will be swallowed back into the peloton, this time with the aim of protecting his team’s ‘plan B’ general classification man, Giulio Pellizzari. As Tratnik pointed out, the 31-year-old will do this with pride and pleasure, because that’s the type of person Nico Denz is. Today, he earned his chance to shine.
