The third stage of the Coppi e Bartali is one of the key ones – the first of two mountain stages. At 179km the stage isn’t brutally long but there is a tough finale in store for the teams. The first difficulty is the ascent of the Monte Carla which is roughly 3.5km in length, averaging close to 6% and with a maximum gradient of 14%. The peleton must face this twice on the run in to the lumpy final section of the race. This lumpy section is consistently over 10% in gradient, and involves one section that is more than 10% for a kilometre. The first descent off this climb leads to Trebbio which comes at the top of a 1.8km climb that maxes out at 10.4%.
In summary, there is a huge amount of tough climbing in store, which should really sort out the riders. It is hard to pick a favourite today though a case can be made for several riders. High on the bookmaker’s lists are: Agudelo Laverde Jimenez Laverde Velez Mancebo Belda Colby Lopez Fonseca
It will be interesting to see if Cativen and Kingspan will allow Agudelo and Belda some room to attack or if they will be both be required to work for their big name leaders. Time will tell.
As with any day that has a flat run in, the break is a popular place to be. Four riders start us off. They are Zarebski Strgar Krivtsov Kaupas
Strgar has already shown his strength on the first day where he almost singlehandedly reeled in the last of the breakaway and brought it down to a sprint finish. He has clearly been given some latitude to try his own thing today.
Following these four are Huff Kananen Spasic
This is a clever move by AMEX to try to get someone up the road – if they can manage it then they can conserve their climbers to keep Colby well supported later in the stage. But more interesting are the two next riders to attack. It is Bespalov Agudelo
So that answers the question posed above – Agudelo has been given free rein to chase the stage today from the break. This will leave Laverde Jimenez without a lot of support in the big climbs, but if it pays off it could pay off big time.
Putting in a huge effort, two riders get to the front, going past Agudelo and Bespalov. They are Dionne Gaspoz
Several riders also reach the two chasers: Mockus Silin Rincon
The large number of attacks leads to an increased pace in the peleton and Zwizanski is the one who brings the chasers back into the fold. Agudelo may not get a chance for the stage win after all. Nine riders remain up front, however. Putting two riders in the break would have been a massive coup for Cativen.
Another wave of attacks follow despite the high pace. This time the aggressors are Hutchings Burlutsky F. Morandi Gallagher
Hutchings is apparently quite keen to defend his KOM jersey and if he can get into this group he might be able to pick up a handful of points to do so. A couple more riders also join them: Chernetsky Higgerson
That makes it 15 riders up front now. Higgerson is an interesting addition given that he sits 5th overall 7” back from Urtasun.
Petrobras put in a lot of work on the front of the peleton in an effort to keep this group contained, but they aren’t able to stop the attacks. The next two riders are Arekejev Wilman
Arekejev was really aggressive on the first day of this race and it looks like he has clearly come to this race with some good form as he tries to get into yet another break. The gap is at 1’05” when these two attack but it quickly grows back out again towards the 1’30” mark.
Another attacker who decides to take a chance here is Jurco. It is interesting that now that there have been 18 attacks the only favourite who has made any move is Agudelo, and he was caught earlier on.
On the front of the peleton several teams are working, even though they almost all have riders up front. Het Nieuwsblad leads the charge, with assistance from Gazprom, Cativen, Petrobras and Finnair, but against 18 riders they are struggling to make much of a dent.
The break gets to the sprint point and there is a big surprise as Higgerson takes the points ahead of Burlutsky and then Dionne. The 6” in bonus time means that Higgerson is now only 1” behind Urtasun overall and into second place. The gap to the front riders is now at 57”.
There is yet another attack as Euser joins the front group. However, it is short lived as finally Shapira manages to pull the entire front group back in. There are still 125km remaining of this stage but the pace in the first half has been immensely high, with the first 54km being raced at almost 50km/h on average.
Our next break is started by Dionne, who put in a late attack on the first stage, but nothing much came of it.
As it happens, in a complete reversal of the entire day so far, no one wants to join Dionne. It is possible that the high pace has caused a lot of tired legs and that people just want to save themselves for the tough finale. Either way, it is going to be tough for the Canadian national champion to take this to the end.
The first ascent of the Monte Carla finally arrives. Dionne has a gap of 6’41” going over the top. The man who wore the young rider jersey after the first day, Costa, leads the peleton over 6’41” later. There is a small split as 17 riders are left behind and they include Lundberg amongst their number as well as green jersey Pichot. Thankfully both of them have plenty of teammates around them to bring it all back together.
Het Nieuwsblad work hard on the flat, and reduce the gap to Dionne. Our leader goes over the top alone with 64km remaining, and a gap of 5’54”. This time he gets mountain points as his reward and he is provisionally in the mountain jersey, though there are 16 points on offer after the final climb in the mountains today, so he is not guaranteed the jersey.
About 1.5km from the summit of this climb Belda goes on the attack. Considered an outsider for today, most assumed that he would be working hard for Mancebo. Maybe this is part of an elaborate plan to ensure that there are riders up the road? Over the top he has pulled out a 30” advantage.
The Het Nieuwsblad team train power on over the flat and they reel him in before the real mountain start. With 52km to go the catch is made and there is a 4’50” gap to Dionne, meaning that he is being controlled well.
10km down the road and the mountains start. UPC and Het Nieuwsblad get on the front and start tapping out a good rhythm that doesn’t put too many people into difficulty, and then their team plans are revealed as Laverde Velez and Wielinga both put in attacks. It looks like UPC aren’t going to try to defend Urtasun’s advantage. 42km to the finish and the favourites are already starting to play.
Just to make this ending even more epic the heaven’s open up and the rain starts to pour down on the hapless cyclists below. The next man to attack in these conditions is Lopez Fonseca. He bridges up to the other two fairly easily and they start to work together well. The trio build up a 53” lead as they go through a tough section that is over 10% for about a kilometre, maxing out at 12%.
As the road flattens out to about 6%, Wielinga puts in another attack to try to go solo away from these other two chasers. He is clearly feeling really strong today.
The peleton is becoming drastically reduced, with the only big name to miss the cut being Agudelo. Is he perhaps saving himself for tomorrow?
One man not saving himself, however, is Laverde Jimenez, arguably the biggest favourite in this race. He puts in a dig!
And who better to respond, than Mancebo? The two biggest favourites have attacked and there is still plenty of road ahead.
These two men both realise that working together is their best option at this point, so they do so to try to reach the three other big climbers up the road. Realising that the big move may already have gone, there are more attacks behind. The order is Chacon Belda Mardones Ribeiro
That is a huge show of force from Kingspan, who have three men now on the attack, all of them capable of putting various favourites to shame.
Belda goes straight past Mancebo and Laverde Jimenez, neither of whom have decided that they want to put too much work in only to help the other. But the man working harder than almost anyone else is Wilman, who taps out a really tough rhythm and manages to pull back this duo, as well as the other people who attacked with Belda.
Dionne’s gap has been quickly disappearing and finally, at the very peak of the second last climb, just before the descent, he is caught. The two chasers had brought Wielinga back and so we are left with a four man lead group.
Lopez Fonseca tries to go on the downhill, but he can’t get a gap and so the four lead riders start to work together – even Dionne has something left in the legs. Their gap is down to 42” over the peleton, who have caught Belda. Mancebo himself not comes to the front of this 39 man group and leads them through the descent, reducing the gap as he goes.
A bridge marks the start of the final climb and just as the climb begins there is yet another attack, this time from Mardones. There is only 17” to the leaders, who are quickly swallowed up.
Wielinga and Laverde Velez go with him, but Wielinga finds he hasn’t got the legs and drops back to the pack. Laverde Velez is able to go around Mardones, however, and sets off alone. A number of attacks follow behind, but they are caught. Riders who try to get away in these efforts are Zambrano Belda Lopez Fonseca (again) Smelcerovic Kloden
Laverde Velez goes over the summit alone, with a 24” advantage over the now 36 men behind him. This also means that he takes the mountain jersey as a reward for his aggression today.
Sad news as we hear that Urtasun has been dropped on the climb and is unlikely to be coming back. Higgerson too was dropped just a little bit later, and they seem likely to finish in the same group, behind the main field. This means that Eliad is the best placed rider in the peleton, though if anyone can finish with a gap or use the bonus seconds, they can take the leader’s jersey.
Speaking of getting a gap, Mardones puts in yet another attack, this time on the descent. He is a much stronger descender than most of the other favourites, so this could be a big chance.
He comes across the gap to Laverde Velez without too many troubles, but unfortunately for both of them it is faithful domestique Costa on the front of the peleton, and he chases them both back, meaning that there is now no one ahead of the bunch.
With 4km to go, the word is out that Urtasun is 1’30” behind and so the pace is lifted once again to ensure that he does not come back. Het Nieuswblad as always are involved in setting the pace, with Armavia helping them.
It is going to come down to a bunch sprint, and no one is willing to open it up until 400 metres to go. Kloden is right on the front of the group, and he has Mancebo directly on his wheel. Can the Spaniard get around the aging German?
And it turns out that he can’t – Andreas Kloden takes a win in the very twilight of his career!
At age 37 he has to be one of the oldest stage winners in Man Game history. The 20 bonus seconds will help him claw back some of his losses from yesterday. Mancebo comes in 2nd, taking the 12 valuable bonus seconds. 3rd place goes to Petrov. Morandi, Smelcerovic and Ciccarese take 4th through 6th, with Zambrano, Fajt, Laverde Jimenez and Belda rounding out the top 10.
Looking at the jerseys – Mancebo pulls on the leader’s jersey ahead of Eliad, who once again is in second place. Stage bonus seconds have spoiled Dyson for two days in a row. Pichot now shares the points jersey with Kloden, though the Frenchman will be wearing it tomorrow. Laverde Velez gets the mountain jersey as his reward for attacking today. Being second, Eliad obviously keeps his young rider’s jersey and will continue to look jealously at yellow. The team competition is looking incredibly interesting, with six teams who had three riders in the first group – Het Nieuwsblad (the current competition leaders), Kingspan, AMEX, Samsung, Metinvest and Petrobras. These are likely to be the six teams who will decide the competition at this point, though a surprise is possible.
