After a few really important days with summit finishes and a mountain time trial, today brings a medium mountain stage that finishes on the flat after a descent. There are two categorised climbs today. The first is the Passo del Tonale which is a 6.5% average and lasts 13.7km. The second climb is the Aprica which is only a 3.2% gradient, but measures 15.5km in length. It is also possible that with this sort of finish a breakaway could perform rather well.
The man starting us off today is Jose Mendes.
Clearly lots of other riders believe that this could be a strong day for the breakaway, and so he is quickly joined by: Lejman Pfannberger Rubiano Chavez Meier Zahner Porte
Then two more riders bridge up, making a lead group of 9 riders: Hernández Gutierrez Medvedev
The presence of Medvedev clearly concerns some teams, so Wiggle and Pendleton’s Twicer chase everything down. Starting up the next attack is Oliver Zaugg.
A huge group forms on his wheel. 15 other riders bridge up to him in small groups over the course of 15 kilometres, and once again Medvedev is present. Taking into account Medvedev and also the sheer size of the group, quite a number ofteams get together on the front of the peleton and chase this move down.
The next rider to kick off an attack is Mauro Facci. 50km of this course have already been raced.
The first two riders to come across to him are Mendes and Danacik.
Following these riders getting off the front, a large number of others try to come across. They are: Pfannberger Camier Gonzalo Rodriguez Rubiano Chavez Zeits Zahner Porte Nepomnyachsniy Deignan
They are lead through the sprint point by Zeits, then Rodriguez and Gonzalo in third. Rodriguez would be a good bet for a stage win on a stage like this because he is one of the best climbers in this group and he also has a strong sprint from a small bunch like this.
With 116km remaining in this long stage, another rider puts in an attack to try to get to the front of the race. This time it is Levarlet. Carmeuse have been putting in a lot of mid-stage attacks throughout this Giro. Levarlet has a 6’30” gap to bridge and no one goes with him.
At the base of our first categorised climb of the day the break has a 2’06” lead on Levarlet and another 4’50” on the peleton. The better climbers in the group comes straight to the front. If they want to stay away they will have to push the pace.
Levarlet does catch up to the group on the climb with 67km remaining to race. After a chase of almost 50km he can finally take a moment to recover.
The first man to be hurt by the increased pace up front is Porte. He is dropped by the group mid way through the climb. Camier lasts a bit longer, but he is still dropped near the summit.
Zeits leads the break over the top of the first climb of the day, ahead of Rodriguez and Zahner. They have a 5’28” lead on the peleton. The pack is currently being lead by Wiggle, to the surprise of some. Perhaps Ponzi is feeling good today? Regardless, the pressure from Wiggle has reduced the numbers to 62 men. Not included in this group is Suaza, who has been fairly inconsistent throughout this race.
The 12 man break hit the climb with their lead drastically reduced to 2’54”. If they can get over this 15.5km climb with a decent lead then they might be able to make it to the finish, which comes another 16km afterwards.
Their plans appear spoiled however because, as the pack hits the climb, Ricco launches an attack! He seriously needs to reverse the trend of bleeding time to Sella every stage and aggressive riding on these medium mountain stages worked on earlier stages.
Sella, Pozzovivo, Denifl, Schleck and Devolder are straight on the back of this attack. Ricco can’t pull out a gap, but as his attack slows, Schleck puts in a dig of his own, coming around the other attackers. Denifl, meanwhile, falls off the pace and drops down to the pack being lead by Arroyo.
Pozzovivo manages to hold the gap and brings Sella, Devolder and Ricco up with him. These five riders now catch the break. Just as they make the catch, however, there is an attack inside the break. Clearly it is in vain because the GC riders want the victory now, but nevertheless they try.
These riders are, rather predictably, dragged back. At the same time, Kohl, Amador and Ardila bring the greatly reduced peleton back up to the leaders. The favourites are all back together now. The next attack is from Henao Montoya.
Henao tires out very quickly though. The last several days have clearly taken their toll. Pozzovivo comes around him and manages to pull out a gap over the other favourites for the day. Ricco is straight onto him though and doesn’t give him any free space to deal with. This climb is just proving to not be steep enough for anyone to create a real time difference.
The final attack comes near the summit of the climb. This time it is Devolder who makes an attempt to get away. Kohl pulls him back though just over the peak, meaning that all the big names are together at the start of the descent.
Around the very first corner on the descent, Pozzovivo and Machado launch an attack together. It will be hard to get away, but it is quite a technical descent so anything is possible.
Sella drags them back into the fold, however. He clearly doesn’t want to let Pozzovivo get a glimpse of the top step of the podium. Remember that Pozzovivo is a slightly better time trialists than both Sella and Ricco.
No one else tries to get away on the descent and so it looks like the group of 27 riders are going to sprint it out. Ponzi is the only decent sprinter here.
However, Ricco is the first man who makes a lunge for the line!
Pozzovivo is straight onto his back wheel and Ponzi is alert enough to get third wheel. As the riders behind try to make sure that Ricco doesn’t get a gap, it becomes clear that the victor will come from these three. With 700m to go, Ponzi still hasn’t kicked.
He kicks shortly after that, but he is clearly absolutely fatigued from the mountains and he just doesn’t have the energy to match Ricco, who takes another stage victory as well as the crucial 20 bonus seconds over Sella.
Ponzi does just beat Pozzovivo to the line, however. Schleck’s final burst of speed is enough to ensure that there are no time gaps. Amador is 5th, Denifl 6th, Carrara 7th, 8th goes to Ardila, Devolder is 9th and Keinath rounds out the top 10.
No changes in the jersey leaders, though Schleck inches back into 2nd in the points competition. The big news is that Ricco’s lead over Sella is back just outside the minute mark, sitting at 1’04”. Those bonus seconds could prove decisive.
