Jonas Vingegaard delivered on Friday at the Giro d\u2019Italia\u2018s first summit finish on Blockhaus, but the winning margin was smaller than many anticipated.<\/p>\n
Without a major rival like Paul Seixas or Tadej Poga\u010dar, Vingegaard started this Giro as the five-star favorite, and he rode like it during the Giro\u2019s longest stage.<\/p>\n
After Sepp Kuss and Visma-Lease a Bike softened up the bunch, the Dane pounced with 6km to go. Italian star Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) bravely put up a fight, but the effort cost him.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard kept piling on and gapped the Italian with just over 4km to go to solo home the victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to go for the win and I\u2019m happy that we managed it, after the incredible work my teammates put in,\u201d Vingegaard said. \u201cI\u2019m proud that I was able to repay that work with a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) emerged as a surprise package in second, recovering late against gusting winds near the top to finish just 13 seconds back.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is one of the rivals, but we already knew that,\u201d Vingegaard said of Gall. \u201cHe is very strong and we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on him. I\u2019m happy to take some time on my rivals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Giro winner Jai Hindley kicked to third at 1:02 back.<\/p>\n
Overnight leader Afonso Eul\u00e1lio (Bahrain Victorious) started with more than six minutes on the GC favorites, and while the Portuguese bled time on the climb, his cushion was enough to keep him in pink heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard won, climbed into second and set a new record time up the Blockhaus summit, but perhaps didn\u2019t blow up the race as much as many were expecting.<\/p>\n
A handful of top rivals worked together to limit the damage \u2014 and keep the Giro alive.<\/p>\n
How it happened<\/h2>\n
The expectations were sky high for the Giro\u2019s longest stage at a monster 244km and the 109th edition\u2019s first summit finale.<\/p>\n
All eyes were on Visma and Vingegaard, to see if they were intent on blowing up the race early.<\/p>\n
Red Bull took up the pace once the pack hit the Blockhaus, a deceptively difficult mountain in the middle spine of Italy\u2019s boot. At 13.4km at 8.5 percent, the climb nudges steeper as it pushed toward the summit.<\/p>\n
Canadian Nickolas Zukowsky (Pinarello Q36.5) held out from the day\u2019s early main breakaway before the \u201cbigs\u201d swept past with 6km to go.<\/p>\n
Visma\u2019s Kuss and Davide Piganzoli surged to the front with 8km to go to pressure everyone.<\/p>\n
Enric Mas (Movistar), Wout Poels (Unibet Rose Rockets), Jan Christen (UAE Emirates-XRG), Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek), and Egan Bernal (Netcompany-Ineos) were among the early contenders to lose the wheel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m feeling better every day so if that continues for two more weeks, things will be looking pretty good,\u201d said Gee-West, eighth on the stage. \u201cI am happy with where I ended up and I started coming back on guys on the end. I paced myself because it was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under pressure from Kuss, the front group was soon reduced to a baker\u2019s dozen heading onto the steepest sectors.<\/p>\n
Record speed up Blockhaus<\/h2>\n
Eul\u00e1lio couldn\u2019t hold the pace and wisely jettisoned out the back with under 6km go to pace himself toward the line.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the moment that Vingegaard jumped, with only Pellizzari and Gall able to hold the wheel, but the Austrian couldn\u2019t hang on for long.<\/p>\n
The young Italian marked the Dane\u2019s wheel, but Vingegaard kept tightening the vise. At just over 4km to go, the elastic snapped.<\/p>\n
One look back on a right-hander confirmed the widening gap. Vingegaard was gone<\/em>.<\/p>\n Gall recovered to reel in and pass Pellizzari, and Ben O\u2019Connor bridged up, with a chasing group behind led by Thymen Arensman (Netcompany-Ineos) trying to keep it close.<\/p>\n There was no stopping Vingegaard, but Gall recovered nicely to limit the damage. Hindley kicked to third at 1:02 back.<\/p>\n According to times compiled by Domestique<\/em>, Vingegaard climbed the Blockhaus in a record time of 38 minutes, 26 seconds, more than one minute faster than the previous record held by Nairo Quintana in 2017.<\/p>\n And that effort came with gusting winds across the upper reaches of the barren summit.<\/p>\n Others also climbed faster, including top-5 stage finishers Gall, Hindley, Pellizzari and O\u2019Connor, further proof that today\u2019s peloton is going faster than ever.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s rollercoaster finale in the 156km stage 8 from Chieti to Fermo could be fertile ground for a breakaway.<\/p>\n Eul\u00e1lio is still a pink jersey placeholder, but Vingegaard is closing in fast and climbed into second overall.<\/p>\n The real GC Giro is finally underway, but at least it\u2019s not over yet.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/giro-ditalia\/giro-ditalia-stage-7-results-2026\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2276408262.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated May 15, 2026 10:02AM Jonas Vingegaard delivered on Friday at the Giro d\u2019Italia\u2018s first summit finish on Blockhaus, but the winning margin was smaller than many anticipated. Without a major rival like Paul Seixas or Tadej Poga\u010dar, Vingegaard started this Giro as the five-star favorite, and he rode like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1937498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1937498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1937498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1937498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1937498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Giro d\u2019Italia stage 7 results<\/h2>\n\n<\/div>\n