Saturday was the 109th Giro d’Italia‘s first big day in the mountains.
Preliminaries
This was the day that everyone expected Dane Jonas Vingegaard to pluck the pink jersey from Afonso Eulálio’s shoulders, making up the 33 seconds that separated them. Eulálio would fight to stay on the podium, and Felix Gall would try to get his podium position back. Derek Gee-West was in eighth with Australians occupying Positions 5 through 7.
1) Afonso Eulálio (Portugal/Bahrain-Victorious) 52:15:17
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) +0:33
3) Thymen Arensman (The Netherlands/Netcompany-Ineos) +2:03
4) Felix Gall (Austria/Decathlon-CMA-CGM) +2:30
8) Derek Gee West (Canada/Lidl-Trek) +3:40
The Course
It was time for big mountains. Five categorized climbs were squeezed into 133 km, with Climbs 3 and 4, Cat. 1 Lin Noir and Cat. 2 Verrogne very close together. The summit finish was pushing HC territory: the ascent to Pila was 16.6 km of 7 percent. It was a hot day.
An enormous raft of riders broke away on the climb that rose immediately from the start in Aosta, Nickolas Zukowsky in its numbers. David de la Cruz was best postioned on GC at 16th. Near the top two riders got away and Jardi Christiaan van der Lee put himself in third in the KOM race by cresting first. At the day’s intermediate spring before the second climb, Cat. 3 Doues, Jhonatan Narváez took the purple points jersey from Paul Magnier on the road. Zukowsky was dropped on Doues.
With 71 km to go, the gap was 3:00 ahead of the Visma-Lease a Bike-led peloton. Could the breakaway survive three more climbs? The Lin Noir-Verrogne double ascent whittled down the leading group, Giulio Ciccone first over Lin Noir. Verrogne saw a further decanting of the escapees and Ciccone scoring maximum KOM points again.
Pila Climb
The breakaway, now down to a dozen riders, started up towards the summit finish with a 2:10 buffer. At first Eulálio stayed close to Vingegaard but soon was Tailgunner Charlie. With 11 km still to climb, the gap was 1:30. Eulálio and Gee-West were dropped.
The last of the fugitives were swept up with 5 km remaining.
Sunday’s stage, preceding the 109th edition’s last rest day, is pan flat and will end in a bunch sprint in Milan.
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