Ben O’Connor limits losses in fight for top spot in Giro d’Italia after struggling on summit finish of Pila

Ben O’Connor’s Giro d’Italia GC aspirations took a serious but perhaps not decisive turn for the worse on Saturday when the Jayco-AlUla leader was amongst the first major contenders to crack on the final summit finish of stage 14 at Pila.

Just when race leader Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) was dropped, nine kilometres from the summit, O’Connor also found he could not handle the pace set down by Visma-Lease a Bike’s top climbing domestique Sepp Kuss. In the space of a kilometre, like Eulálio, the Australian had already lost over a minute on the main GC group.