The peloton is aiming towards Switzerland today with an interesting stage to end the 2nd week of the 2015 Giro d'Italia.
It`s one of those opportunities for Ricco to gain on his biggest opponents as seen on previous stages while the Italian is fighting to avoid bigger time losses on the longer climbs.
5 breakaway riders and last stages have shown that it`s a breakaway friendly race here with Festina not having the energy to chase on every single day. That said, their strength in the hills is clearly better than in the mountains.
Scarponi
Siutsou
Majka
Topchanyuk
Fernandez
First is best placed as 31st and 29'18 behind.
Festina had to work alone for most of the stage and kept it under 7min. It took until the 40km mark when Pokerstars helped them as the break still was having a 4min advantage.
Sprint
Fernandez
6
Topchanyuk
4
Siutsou
2
Cat.4
Siutsou
5
Fernandez
3
Topchanyuk
1
With 8km to go we are already at the foot of the final climb. Not much had happened recently and while the chasing looked good for some time, it`s still 2min for the 5 in front. So yet again we will see a breakaway win most likely.
More interesting though that the Maglia Rosa attack! With Ricco also Skujins ahead of the peloton.
Behind them Ginanni also follows but in the end just pulls the whole peloton with him.
Siutsou reaches the top first. 36s ahead of the others and another 1'40 to the favourites. Only a descent left for him.
The recent attacking trio tried it again and this time also Ponzi. Some real hill power by those 4.
33s behind them another 6 riders in the attack:
Pozzovivo
Brajkovic
Claeys
Ulissi
Gilbert
Koretzky
So 2 stage racers that prove to be stronger on those hills while the others are puncheurs. This leaves Schleck and Madrazo in the peloton being in danger to lose more time.
No one was able to catch Siutsou on the descent. A nice win for him and Pendleton`s.
A little bit later Scarponi goes for 2nd ahead of Topchanyuk and the other two.
Ponzi did attack in the descent and comes in solo a bit ahead of the others. Behind him another solo rider as Ricco comes in and gains important time today once more using the hilly stages to his advantage.
30s later Skujins and Ginanni next.
Braijkovic and Pozzovivo both gain about 1min on the other stage racers today which is some great result.
Schleck/Madrazo inside the peloton lose almost 2min on Ricco here, which will be some task to gain back.
Ricardo Diaz did not finish todays stage. Probably he crashed somewhere.