Vingegaard wins but Gall is the talking point at the top of Blockhaus. Giro d'italia stage 7 reaction and analysis

Jonas Vingegaard claimed victory in the longest stage at a grand tour in 5 years, and on top of one of the most famous mountains in Italy, but that is not the talking point, as the gaps to the rest of the GC contenders were much smaller than many feared before a wheel turned this morning.

The break of the day featured 5 riders, the most notable rider of the five being Jonathan Milan, who got up the road so he could take maximum points at the intermediate sprint to close the gap to Paul Magnier in the battle for the Maglia Ciclamino. But other than the break, nothing much happened for the first 200km of the stage; the break maintained a gap of over 5 minutes and poor Timo Kielich sat at the front of the peloton with little to no help.

Finally, the action began to begin in the run-in to Blockhaus as the gap to the breakaway disappeared from well over five minutes to two and a half by the time the climb started. In the early slopes, the peloton stayed in the status quo until David Piganzoli hit the front, and immediately riders started going backwards with key pre-race GC contenders like Enric Mas, Egan Bernal and the UAE duo of Jan Christen and Igor Arrieta were dropped with over 7km to go. The next victim was Derek Gee-West, and with 5.7km to go, the pink jersey, Aurelio Eulalio, was dropped, and at this point, given that Vingegaard hadn't even attacked yet, his hold on pink looked in a little bit of danger.

Vingegaard was led out by Sepp Kuss with 5.5km to go. He attacked instantly, dropping every GC contender other than Giulio Pellizzari and Felix Gall, who were able to stick with him initially before Gall was dropped quickly after the attack, and Pellizzari was dropped with 4.4km to go. At this point, the pre-race worries of Vingegaard putting a couple of minutes into everyone looked like they might be coming true.

But huge credit to Felix Gall, he didn't try and follow Vingegaard for very long in the red and just stuck to his watts and his tempo and when Pellizzari was dropped by Vingegaard, he caught and passed him with 4km to go and set after Vingegaard with the gap at this point at over 20 seconds. Over the next 4km, he whittled away at Vingegaard's lead, and when he crossed the line, he was only 12 seconds behind the Dane in what, in my opinion, was the best ride of his career to this point. Can Gall overcome Vingegaard to win pink? It's very unlikely, given he struggles on a time trial bike, and this climb is his preferred style of climb, a very consistent gradient, so he can find his rhythm and stick to it, rather than consistent speed changes but he has put himself in a position where he is now favoured to finish on the podium when the peloton rolls into Rome.

As for the rest of the GC contenders, Jai Hindley and Ben O'Connor caught Pellizzari, and they crossed the line as a group of three with Hindley 3rd, Pellizzari 4th and O'Connor 5th, losing just over a minute to Vingegaard with Mathys Rondel and excellent 6th for Tudor losing a minute and a half, then the rest of the main contenders other than Enric Mas and Egan Bernal, who lost much more time and their GC hopes are now in tatters, all finished close together losing at least a minute and fourty seconds to Vingegaard. 

Eulalio stays in pink by over three minutes as he lost two minutes and fifty to Vingegaard, but his lead is still over three minutes from Vingegaard in second, who has a gap of 17 seconds to Gall in third.

Gall's performance sets up the battle for the podium behind the presumed winner in Vingegaard nicely as he has a near-minute gap on Hindley, Pellizzari and O'Connor, who are all within 6 seconds in 4th, 5th and 6th, respectively with another very hard stage coming on Sunday.