Stage 11 is the last of the mountain stages in this part of the race. Unlike the others, it has a downhill finish - but there's four big climbs before then, ending with the Passo Giau. This same stage featured in the race last year, and did not do much damage. 27 GC riders finished together, 7 minutes behind the breakaway winner Kruijswijk.
The relative order of the Top 20 riders in this race has started to take some shape now, after much shuffling over the past few stages.
Downhill is not a particular strength of many of the GC contenders. Nibali is by far the best, while Abal is also reasonablly skilled.
Kruijswijk may have a new team, but he has the same freedom, and he is back in the breakaway looking for a repeat victory.
With him are: Laengen Sergis Affonso Marzuki Boom Pedrero Gusev Bol Ignatiev Potts Brockhoff
Potts has been the aggressor of the flatter stages, looking to become this year's Dall'Oste, and beat the GC riders to the KoM jersey. Indeed, the Italian picked up a number of points on this very stage. The problem for Potts is that he struggles in the Mountains, and when the attacks went from the break for the opening Cat 2 climb, he was getting dropped instead.
Pedrero took the points from Affonso and Laengen. Marzuki was able to add just 2 more to his total.
There were two big crashes in the first half of this stage. The first happened even before this first categorised climb, featuring sprinters Grosu and Roelandts. Also: Turek, Downey, Dupont, Liepins, Gallego Martin, Hermans, Gets, Villella, Sinkeldam, Buchmann, Brown and Haugard.
The second came on the descent of the Cat 2 climb, this time involving some of the climbers. It wasn't possible to identify all of the riders, but there were 5 riders down, including their leader Formolo. Kolesnikov, Vosekalns, and Kirsch were also involved.
We also have our first casualties of the race, including one of those Gazelle riders, Agudelo, and also Bevin. They are too injured to carry on, and have abandoned.
Those who crashed were not dropped, just falling to the back of the peloton. They have time to move back forwards, assuming no injury.
The Passo Duran is the first of the three big climbs at the end of the stage. Benito and Herrada are pace setting for Alarcon. The break only holds a 3 minute lead.
Morton and Velits are keeping close to Alarcon, but only up to a point. They suddenly hold off his wheel, and watch as a trio of Hugo Boss riders just rides away.
Alarcon needs no invitation, even with 65km to go!
Nobody else has any teammates near the front to immediately take up the chase, and a 1'30 gap quickly emerges. Velits takes up the chase himself, and he too is then allowed to ride clear!
Alarcon quickly rides up to the front of the breakaway, but he finds them shortly after Kruijswijk and Laengen, the strongest in the group, have left the others behind. The next best left were Affonso, Pedrero and Boom and the three of them just sit up.
Not only that, but they block the progress of Alarcon. He finds himself stuck there, and this allows Velits to catch up with him. It may even see this promising move end, if they don't break out of the monotony - meanwhile Kruijswijk and Laengen ride away and gain a 3 minute lead on them.
Eventually Alarcon and Velits do press on, and they take the summit 3'30 behind the breakaway duo.
Even with this slowdown, they've built a huge advantage over the rest of the peloton. That group is down to 42 riders, and now being led by Dyball. It is 6'30 behind the leaders - so 3 whole minutes behind Alarcon and Velits. And the one advantage those two do have from that slow period, is that they could recover the energy - and have now become allies.
Missing from that peloton of 42 is Vosekalns. The former race leader, still with aspirations of a Top 20, unfortunately appears to have picked up an injury from his crash. He is in a group being guided by teammate Siskevicius, 5 minutes behind the peloton.
The Forcella Staulenza is the next climb, and there's no more messing around from the other GC contenders. Attacking with 42km does not seem so strange when the race leader broke away more than 20 kilometres previously.
Morton attacks, Monsalve and Henao Montoya are the first to follow, with Abal.
Cattaneo makes it up to this attack, and others follow also: Nibali Reis Bongiorno Galta Olivier König Talansky Brambilla Formolo Vasyliv
Kolesnikov soon jumps across too.
Meanwhile Velits and Alarcon have ridden across to Kruijswijk and Laengen.
They drop them before the top - although Kruijswijk stays close and rejoins them on the descent. Some minutes later, the other riders follow them over.
Front
Alarcon
Velits
17
Kruijswijk
1'21
Laengen
3'42
Morton
Henao Montoya
3'56
Monsalve
Cattaneo
4'16
Abal
4'41
Nibali
4'56
Reis
Bongiorno
Galta
Olivier
König
Talansky
Brambilla
Formolo
5'48
Vasyliv
Kolesnikov
6'04
Carapaz
Sosnitskiy
Aru
Scarponi
7'06
Kirsch
Giogieri
Lövkvist
Ignatenko
8'50 18, including Konrad and Nesset
Morton and Henao went in to this stage battling for 2nd place in GC, but are seeing that become 3rd if Velits gains so much. Now onto the final climb, the Passo Giau, the Australian rides away from the Colombian.
Sticking together are Alarcon and Velits. Morton reduces their gap to 3 minutes, but they won't be getting too worried yet.
There's some consolidation behind. While Henao presses on, and is the next to catch Laengen; the trio of Monsalve, Abal and Cattaneo forms behind him. And then it is the 9 riders of Nibali, Galta, Reis, Talansky, Brambilla, Bongiorno, Olivier and Konig. Their deficit to the front is 5'12.
The gaps are growing further behind. Kolesnikov at 5'52; Formolo at 6'08; Scarponi at 6'33; then Pedrero from the breakaway before Vasyliv, Carapaz, Sosnitskiy and Aru at 7'32; Kirsch, Giogieri, Ignatenko and Lovkvist at 9'02; Dzhus, Ablenado, Ivanov and Novkiov at 10'00; Majka at 10'24.
Velits takes the Passo Giau points, moving up to 3rd in the KoM competition - while Alarcon extends his lead. No late attack away from the Czech rider this time, unlike the previous stage.
Morton had managed to close the gap to 2'30, at the point in which he caught Kruijswijk. But then he started to lose ground again, back out to 3'08 at the summit - allowing Henao Montoya to close back in on him.
Cattaneo, Monsalve, and Abal are still together, but now all but 5 minutes behind.
Nibali leads over the next group at 5'42. And it looks like Olivier, König and Bongiorno have really started suffering at the end of the climb - along with Laengen, who was able to briefly support his teammate Galta.
The gap has expanded behind. Sosnitskiy is now the leading Gazelle rider at 7'20, with Formolo in a group with Kolesnikov, Scarponi, Aru and Carapaz at 8'03. Kirsch is coming across to them at 8'36. Lovkvist and Vasyliv now 9'51 down, with Ablenado, Giogieri, Ignatenko, Novikov, Pedrero and Dzhus at 11'29.
Nibali leading his group over the top means a fast descent for all involved. Hopes that Olivier, Laengen, Konig and Bongiorno had of clinging on are soon evaporated, they are dropped and start to lose a lot of time.
Nibali almost catches the trio in front of them, but Abal is not going to go down without a fight. He attacks away from Monsalve and Cattaneo.
Meanwhile Morton is also determined to secure the 3rd place time bonus, as well as just finishing as fast as possible He has shown to struggle in head to head sprints, but has been able to drop a tired Kruijswijk - and regain some of his advantage on Henao.
The end is in sight for Alarcon and Velits. Both can be very happy with their time gains, but now for the cherry on the top part. Alarcon leads at 2km to go, but Velits nips in front under the flamme rouge.
Velits opens the sprint, desperately hoping for an iconic victory.
But Jose Alarcon has no mercy. Back through he comes to take his 3rd stage victory of the race!
The final gap for Morton is 3'10. He has largely matched the other two for the final 40km, despite having to do it all on his own. But this is a further blow to his hopes of winning the race - and it has cost him 2nd overall too. Henao Montoya beat Kruijswijk for 4th, finishing at 3'59.
Abal finishes decisively, as he looks to make progress on 5th overall. He finishes at 4'35, almost gaining a whole minute late on over Monsalve and Cattaneo - those two at 5'23.
And they barely held on over the next group. 5'44 for Talansky, Nibali, Brambilla, Galta and Reis.
It was a pretty disastrous descent for those dropped. 7'08 for Olivier and Laengen, then Bongiorno and Konig all the way back at 8'09 - and being caught by Sosnitskiy. Strong descending Scarponi with Kolesnikov at 8'41; then Formolo with a very bad ending to finish with Aru, Carapaz, and Kirsch at 9'43. Vasyliv also struggled after his initial attack, finishing at 10'58 with Lovkvist - and nearly another 2 minutes before the next riders appeared. Vosekalns eventually finishes 79th, losing 28'17.
Also bad injury news for Evonik from the first crash of the day. Liepins and Gallego Martin were hurt the most, and suffered through to the end of the stage, only to finish outside of the time limit.
Big gaps on the stages means big gaps on the GC. It's fair to say that this stage was a whole lot more destructive than last year! Alarcon's lead is now 5'40 over Velits, 7'39 over Morton and 9'14 over Henao. Monsalve and Abal now locked together on 11'34, with then Cattaneo back at 13'26 and Nibali at 14'31.
The final Top 10 position battle is close, with Talansky, Galta, Brambilla and Reis all separated by just 33 seconds; Olivier and Kolesnikov slipping to a minute further back. Kruijswijk has now lept up to 15th place to become the best placed Gazelle rider, as Formolo drops to 18th. For Vosekalns, the drop is all the way to 40th position.
Gazelle edged out Hugo Boss to be the best team on the day, but Ferrero lost 10 minutes, so as a result Hugo Boss' lead is now up to 9 minutes - over Gazelle.
