Today’s stage is a fairly flat 147km stage that only has one real obstacle in it. That obstacle is the Passo di Ganda, a 9.5km long climb with an average of just under 7%. This should be enough to seriously challenge any of the sprinters, but as ever this sort of stage is very hard to predict and so we could be in for some fantastic racing today.
Just like yesterday people are eager to join the break. The first man to do so is Richie Porte. Porte has been in numerous breaks so far and is clearly still looking for that elusive stage victory.
Several men follow his lead and attack out. They are: Camier Bertagnolli Frei Facci Brenes Zeits
Seeing this group forming a gap, several other riders want to come across the 45” gap. In small groups the riders are: Delgado Ortega Wallays Anacona Offredo Steensen Rubiano Chavez Libert
Though several riders try to attack away this group re-forms as a lead group of 15.
Obviously this is far too large a group to allow to get away so several teams start to work with Jack Wolfskin doing a lot of work. The gap doesn’t reduce much, however, and so it looks like this massive break is going to get away.
Their gap goes over the 2 minute mark, but with 80km remaining in the stage several of the teams understand how much of a threat this group poses to the stage victory. As such Bacardi get on the front and after only 7km the group is dragged back in and everyone is together.
This of course leads to new attacks. First to go is Libert.
Rubiano Chavez comes up to his wheel and things appear to be going well. At this point another 3 riders attack. They are:
Anza Posthuma Flügel
All 3 of these are fairly good puncheurs and could quite likely do well on a course like this where the final climb is some way away from the end. They attack away from the peleton and straight past Libert and Rubiano Chavez.
Banos Ballester comes up to the 2 chasing riders and they start working. Curfs also starts to bridge up but struggles to come across the gap.
More seriously Walker and Moletta attack out of the pack. Both of these are strong puncheurs and could definitely stand a chance of making it to the front group. They slot in with Libert’s group and Curfs is dragged along with them.
Anza leads the front riders through the sprint point ahead of Flügel and Posthuma. Their lead is at 57” on the chasers and another 2’40” on the peleton. By the time they reach the climb of the day that lead has extended to 1’22” on the chasers and another 1’55” on the peleton.
Curfs and Libert are dropped from the chase group fairly quickly as Moletta and Walker put in an effort on the steep early section.
Festina and Wiggle lead the peleton onto the climb and almost immediately the group shatters. The weaker riders up front hold up the stronger ones behind them and three major groups form. The first contains Ricco, Amador, Stalder and Hoogerland. The second group has Schleck, Machado and Henao as well as several domestiques. Finally, the third group has Sella and Devolder, as well as most of the other favourites. The two GC riders who are stuck even further back are Kohl and Arroyo.
Schleck manages to come across the gap and the entire second group on the road follows him up. Sella helps to bring his group up to the front, and Kohl is also brought up by his team. This means there is a favourites group of 25 with a 27 man chasing group that contains Arroyo.
This acceleration results in all the members of the chase group being caught. The front three riders are still ahead, however Posthuma is dropped right near the summit. It is only a few hundred metres from the top and he manages to catch back up around the first few corners of the descent.
Things are not as simple behind, however, as Schleck goes on the attack just over a kilometre from the summit! He realises that if he wants to stay in contention for a podium place he must put time into Pozzovivo.
Ricco, Walker, Pozzovivo, Ponzi, Sella and Machado go straight with him, forming a new group of favourites. Talabardon and Ardila share most of the pace-setting behind.
Over the top of the climb Schleck, Ricco, pozzovivo and Ponzi have formed a 24” gap over Walker, Machado and Sella. There are another 34” back to the peleton.
Schleck pushes on during the descent in the hope of creating a gap. He is serious about it today and this push gets a bit of a gap on Pozzovivo. Ricco and Ponzi go with Schleck.
Walker is helping a lot on the descent and he shares much of the work with Sella and Pozzovivo. This helps to reduce the gap pretty quickly, so Schleck can’t get much of a gap. Devolder adds his firepower to the group by bridging up from the rest of the favourites’ group.
As the action amongst the GC riders continues to blaze, Arroyo is fighting a battle of his own. Isolated without any domestiques just over 2 minutes behind the other favourites, he attacks on the descent and sets off to try to limit his time loss.
Ponzi manages to get a gap, but Schleck is straight out after him. Schleck goes around and sets off alone again.
As the descent finishes, however, and the flat run-in to the finish begins, Schleck is caught by all of the other favourites who had attacked together. Behind them Amador and Stalder have done most of the work and they succeed in catching Ricco’s group. The situation is similar to what it was for much of the climb – there is now a lead group of 26 riders behind the 3 leaders.
Up front, Posthuma attacks with 10km remaining! Remember that he was dropped near the summit of the climb so this could be a great turn-around. The situation is:
20”
37”
57”
Posthuma
--->
Anza/ Flügel
--->
Peleton
With 3km to go Posthuma’s gap is down to 8” as Anza manages to chase him down. The 2 chasers only have another 28” on the peleton though, so anything could happen.
Anza looks strong as he comes past Posthuma with 1500 metres remaining.
Under the final kilometre the gap is at 36”. It looks like Anza and Flügel will sprint this out. Posthuma has to try to hold off the charging group behind him.
With 600 metres remaining Flügel kicks. The chase has sapped all of Anza’s reserves and the German comes around his Italian breakaway companion.
What masterful timing for Aleksandr Flügel, who shows exactly why his team were given the wildcard invitation. A great victory.
Posthuma is caught during the run-in. Ricco has sprinted well thus far this Giro, can he take the 8 bonus seconds?
No! Ponzi comes through in third place, ahead of Amador in fourth.
Ricco gets fifth place, Schleck is sixth and Pozzovivo is seventh. 8th goes to Cataldo, 9th to Denifl and rounding out the top 10 today is Moletta, who managed to hold on after the peleton caught him during the climb.
Finally, Arroyo comes through 4’16” down on the time of today’s winner, which is the same time that all the favourites were given. Thankfully for him he holds onto his 10th place, but Menchov is now within striking distance. He can also wave goodbye to any chance of 9th place.
In the jerseys, arroyo was the only one to lose time. Pozzovivo moves up to third in the points competition, overtaking Sella, whose lack of sprinting ability is harming him in that competition. Vesuvio are now more than 10 minutes ahead of Vespa in the team competition.
