On the finishing circuits around Rome, Jonathan Milan finally arrived first. The Italian took stage 21 of the 2026 Giro d'Italia on 31 May, his first win of a race that had asked twenty questions and refused him an answer each time. The victory spared Lidl-Trek a blank edition. It closed the Giro on the terms the team had wanted for three weeks.
How Rome was won
The last day was never going to be simple.
Ganna attacked with around 18km remaining on the finishing circuits in the Italian capital.
Milan had read the danger long before it came.
Speaking after the stage, he said he had been watching for exactly that. "I was kind of expecting something from Pippo maybe," he said. "I saw him in the beginning of the stage with a single chainring in the front and I say, it's not the usual."
Lidl-Trek had prepared for it.
The team knew attacks would come in the finale and had Matteo Sobrero cover moves. When Ganna went, Sobrero, the former Italian time-trial champion, sat on the move rather than chasing it.
The tactic mattered.
Because Sobrero sat on the attack rather than letting it ride, Lidl-Trek kept their remaining riders around Milan in the bunch, preserving the formation that would guide him through the finale.
When the move came back, Milan still had his train.
The plan neutralised Ganna without dismantling the sprint train that delivered their man to the line.
At the line he held off Giovanni Lonardi and Paul Penhoet, with Dylan Groenewegen fourth.
"I think the guys did also a super good job in the final. It was a really big team effort today. I'm really happy to pay them back with this victory."
The wait behind it
The result read as relief more than triumph.
The win capped a Giro that had tested Milan's patience. No stage victory before the finale was an odd situation for the big Italian after repeated near-misses, including a third place behind Paul Magnier and Edoardo Zambanini on stage 18.
The context stung more still.
Magnier dominated the sprint stages and took the points classification, the first time Milan has finished a Grand Tour without winning that jersey.
What carried the team, Milan said, was the refusal to dwell.
He described the race as "really, really long" but said the team's ability to reset after each disappointment carried them through. "I'm really happy that we always keep fighting, keep believing in it until the last stage," he said.
For a rider used to leaving Grand Tours in the points jersey, this was a harder kind of week, and a plainer kind of win.
He came to Rome with nothing and left it first. Sometimes the last chance is the only one that counts.
