"There are unwritten rules that you have to respect" - Felix Gall's Giro podium may have been secured due to tradition

Felix Gall has just finished second at the Giro d'Italia, the best result of his career in a Grand Tour and the one where he showed his best level in the mountains. The Austrian could benefit from an unwritten rule amongst the pros, which might have been the reason why he was never tested on the downhills.

“Very positive. We came here with big ambitions, and those turned out to be achievable. On paper we were aiming for top five, but dreaming of top three," Decathlon CMA CGM Team rider Oliver Naesen shared with IDLProCycling.

Fifth place at last year's Tour certainly allowed Gall to aim higher at this year's Giro, after the withdrawal of riders such as João Almeida, Richard Carapaz, Mikel Landa (before the start); whilst in the first stages Santiago Buitrago and Adam Yates were also forced to abandon.

"We had thought that Giulio Pellizzari would be the second-best climber behind Vingegaard, but it turned out to be us. That was fantastic," the Belgian said. In the first week is where Gall really took a big amount of time on his direct rivals for the podium fight; but it was his consistency throughout the whole race that had him finish so high.

“Before the Giro I already knew that Felix would be among the best two or three climbers, but how big would the beating be in the 42-kilometre time trial? The big GC riders who are strong time triallists were not really here, so the damage remained limited. Still, danger is always lurking around the corner in a Grand Tour.”

On the mountains the Austrian was able to recover the time he lost on the time trial, mostly to Thymen Arensman. But above that, he avoided time losses in crashes, crosswinds, and his notable weakness - the descents. Naesen explains how his 'second-best' status at the Giro from early on helped him and the team.

“In previous years Felix wasted a lot of energy wriggling and pushing for position, energy he then lacked uphill. If it is clear that you are the second-best climber in the peloton, it is hard for the rest to attack us. There are unwritten rules that you have to respect," the veteran argues. "As second in the standings, you are the second team in line in the peloton, which means Felix was always eighth or ninth at the front.”

This ultimately meant that the climber was never truly tested on the downhills, where in the past he has experienced difficult moments. “That was ideal for every descent. If a Filippo Ganna had been riding alongside us at that moment with Thymen Arensman, that would not have been allowed," Naesen explains. The other teams would race under the same assumption.

"And it works the other way too; if we had been behind INEOS in the standings, we would also not have ridden in front of or inside their train, and we would have had to endure the race behind them.”

Aside from that, Naesen was the road captain for the team, making decisions on the go and communicating with other teams. The French team was often clashing with Team Visma | Lease a Bike and it was Naesen who would do the talking.

“Victor Campenaerts is the mouthpiece at Visma | Lease a Bike, and if he came over to Felix in a flat stage to ask what we were planning, he would always answer ‘I’m just a passenger, talk to Oliver and leave me alone'.”

The team's tactics were quite conservative when it came to having men in breakaway, with the group sticking together throughout most of the race. However, it was a working strategy, with Gall finishing second at the end of the race.

“In those stages nothing was expected of him, he just had to finish with the first group. That gave him a lot of peace. After that crash on day two, I also told Felix 'we are not involved in that. It was wet, we were riding at 90 per hour, so we stayed centrally at the back'. I promised him I would get him back to the front when we reached the climb. Those really were Felix’s strengths in this Giro," he concluded.