Jonas Vingegaard has earned a statement triumph on the celebrated Blockhaus ascent while Australia's former champion Jai Hindley showed he's in the mood to battle for the podium again at the Giro d'Italia.
Double Tour de France winner Vingegaard, on his Giro debut, powered away on the first summit finish of the race on Friday's seventh stage, completing his set of Grand Tour stage wins and showing why's he's the overwhelming favourite to take the maglia rosa.
But while the great Dane won the 244km stage from Formio – the longest Grand Tour stage in five years -- Australia's biggest guns also had an impressive day behind him, with Hindley finishing third, 62 seconds behind, and Ben O'Connor fifth at 65sec.
With Michael Storer battling home ninth on the day, it meant Australia can now boast three riders in the top-10 overall -- Red Bull BORA-hansgrohe's Hindley fourth at 4min 25sec behind Portuguese leader Afonso Eulalio, with Jayco AlUla's O'Connor sixth at 4:32 and Tudor Pro's Storer 10th at 5:11.
But Vingegaard's charge, which took him to second on the GC 3:17 behind Eulalio -- who lost nearly three minutes to the Dane on the day -- was a demonstration of controlled mastery as he attacked on the celebrated steep 13.6km Blockhaus slopes to outpace runner-up, the resurgent Austrian Felix Gall, by 13 seconds.
As Vingegaard's Visma Bike a Lease team set the pace, Eulalio was dropped with a little over 5.5km to go, with Vingegaard then attacking off the front and both Gall and Hindley's teammate Giulio Pellizzari attempting to follow suit.
Gall did well to ensure Vingegaard didn't completely blow him away, but perhaps significantly for Red Bull BORA-hansgrohe, who have named Pellizzari and Hindley as joint team leaders, it was the Australian who ended up eclipsing his tiring Italian teammate, sprinting to grab third place and limit the losses.
It may not be until the final week that it becomes clear who will eventually take the reins for the team, but Blockhaus was where Hindley famously won a sprint finish during his 2022 triumph and it felt as if he was showing again why he could yet be their best bet, especially come the third week when he's usually at his strongest.
"I'm definitely happy that I could take back some time," Vingegaard said.
"It's a good day for me, a good day for us. For sure Felix Gall is a big rival to me. I knew it already before the race, he's a really strong guy that we really have to take into account."
