"I'm pretty curious" - Felix Gall not expecting Giro time trial miracles as he praises 'complete rider' Vingegaard

Felix Gall will certainly be on the mind of Jonas Vingegaard when he takes to the Giro d'Italia stage 10 start line on Tuesday, and not only because the Decathlon CMA CGM rider will have started his time trial just moments before him. The Austrian rider seems to be the only one close to the Dane's climbing level at the first two mountain-top finishes.

Gall lies just 35 seconds behind pre-race favourite Vingegaard in the hunt for the Maglia Rosa going into week two - with both riders behind current pink jersey Afonso Eulálio by almost three minutes. Although the pair and other general classification favourites likely to reel in that gap from the Bahrain - Victorious man.

Many speculated that Vingegaard's Giro strategy would see him attempt to take big chunks of time last week, and for the most part the two-time Tour de France winner did so with wins on Blockhaus and Corno alle Scale, but Gall has emerged as a threat to Vingegaard after seemingly having his number.

In stage 7 to Blockhaus, Gall paced himself well to finish second behind Vingegaard and even close the gap to him in the final two kilometers to a matter of seconds. Meanwhile it was Gall who led up Corno alle Scale on stage 9 with Vingegaard in the wheel before the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader attacked with 900 meters to go to take the stage.

With Gall showing his level is not far from the Danish star, he faces a daunting time trial on Tuesday - a discipline he hasn't excelled at throughout his career. Usually expected to lose time to Vingegaard and other GC hopefuls in a time trial of this length, Gall insists he's hopeful after putting in some extra miles on a TT bike this season.

“I’m pretty curious myself about how it’s going to go tomorrow,” Gall said in an interview with journalists. “I’m not expecting any miracles tomorrow, but I hope it’s going to go well.”

Despite appearing to be close to his level, Gall heaped praise on Vingegaard: “I mean, he has shown and proven over and over again in the last years that he is the best Grand Tour rider next to Tadej [Pogacar]. I mean, he’s super. I wouldn’t say he has any weaknesses. He has a really strong team, and he also punchy compared to other GC guys. I would say he’s just a really, really complete rider.”

Gall's respect for Vingegaard is so strong, that when he took to the front on Sunday, his glances back to survey the damage were not fully aimed at the man in yellow - but to see if he was distancing his rivals in GC.

Gall said: “I mean, I was looking at him, but I also looking to see if there was someone coming back to us, because it seemed for a bit like Thymen [Arensman] might catch up."

“I wanted to know about the gap behind us, and then also of course it would have been nice to have Jonas working a little bit with me. And maybe it was also to see if he was suffering, but he looked very relaxed. It would have been nice maybe to see a little bit of pain in his face, but that was not the case.”

After his Decathlon CGM CMA team worked most of the stage, Gall did admit that he understands why the Dane waited in his wheel before making a decisive move, even if he did wish for assistance. Nonetheless, the 28-year-old climber is happy to showcase the strength of both his legs and his team.

“If I had been in his position, I also wouldn’t have taken a turn. And on this kind of gradient, it’s also didn’t really make a difference. I understood that he was waiting to attack me, and I was more focused on putting time into the guys behind me.

“It’s super nice to see I have good shape, and we can be proud that we showed what a strong team we are. But just because you work as a team all day long doesn’t mean you are guaranteed the stage win.”