Back to the mountains! Three big category one climbs, following a few earlier climbs as well. The first of those three big climbs is the Passo Giau, ridden for the second time this race. Following it are the Passo Fedaia and the Passo Pordoi, before the final descent.
Here's a reminder of the highest placed 20 riders in the race:
1
Jose Alarcon
Hugo Boss
56h28'20
2
Peter Velits
Moser - Sygic
+ 5'40
3
Lachlan Morton
Jayco - Cobra9
+ 7'39
4
Sergio Luis Henao Montoya
Ferrero - Samruk
+ 9'14
5
Yonathan Monsalve
Ayubowan!
+ 11'34
6
David Abal
Spotify - Haglöfs
+ 11'35
7
Mattia Cattaneo
Wiesenhof-Andritz
+ 13'26
8
Vincenzo Nibali
Pendleton's
+ 14'31
9
Andrew Talansky
Podium Ambition
+ 16'00
10
Fredrik Strand Galta
Aker - MOT
+ 16'18
11
Gianluca Brambilla
eBuddy
+ 16'26
12
Rafael Reis
Porto - Prio
+ 16'33
13
Daan Olivier
Aegon - Lavazza
+ 17'47
14
Sergei Kolesnikov
Ferrero - Samruk
s.t.
15
Steven Kruijswijk
Gazelle
+ 19'32
16
Francesco Bongiorno
Team Puma - SAP
+ 20'02
17
Leopold König
Vesuvio - Accumalux
+ 20'09
18
Davide Formolo
Gazelle
+ 20'49
19
Fabio Aru
eBuddy
+ 22'46
20
Yuriy Vasyliv
Festina - Dexia
+ 23'21
It is three mountain stage wins out of three for Alarcon, and that is evident in his gap. Velits being closest, at 5'40, with Morton at 7'39 and Henao at 9'14. Monsalve and Abal are battling for 5th; Cattaneo and Nibali are comfortably Top 10 but aiming higher; while Talansky, Galta, Brambilla and Reis lead the battle for the remaining Top 10 positions.
The team managers of those ranked lower in the Top 10, or the rest of the Top 20, have one big hope for the forthcoming mountain stages: their leader trying to go away in the breakawy. This often starts happening towards the end of Grand Tours, and today is that day!
König is the first of these riders to go for it!
Team Puma - SAP aren't keen of this move though, and shut it down.
This isn't to protect the GC position of Bongiorno, who is one above the Czech rider. Instead it is to give him the launchpad, he attacks!
This culminates in a strong breakaway group of 14 riders, with many good riders. Bongiorno and Konig are the best, with Kruijswijk as well. He had already benefited from one breakaway to take him up to 15th overall, he is the best placed rider in the group. Albeit on 30 seconds, and 1 spot, ahead of Bongiorno.
The full list of breakaway riders is: Bongiorno Boom Buchmann Cataford Kastrantas König Konrad Kruijswijk Laengen Ludvigsson Majka Pedrero Shushemoin Siskevicius
They aren't just allowed to ride away though, as Porto - Prio are keen to chase them down. First Fiedler, then Oliveira, and then Silva. Protecting the GC position of Reis already?
A pattern emerges overs this opening part of the stage. At the top of each climb, the breakaway group attacks for points and their lead extends to around 4 minutes. Then the Porto riders bring that back to just under 2 minutes.
On these early climbs, the results were:
1
2
3
1. Cat 3
Shushemoin
Laengen
Konrad
2. Cat 2
Ludvigsson
Majka
König
3. Cat 2
Majka
Ludvigsson
Bongiorno
As the peloton summited the 3rd climb, there were more attackers! First Novikov and Dzhus, then Ivanov, and then perhaps more importantly, Figueiredo.
The Portugese rider doesn't get far, descending the climb only 30 seconds or so in front of the peloton. But now Porto - Prio are not bothered about chasing, and the gap to the breakaway starts to grow.
The breakaway also starts to split up, as we are back on to the Passo Giau. Bongiorno and König didn't try too hard at the earlier climb sprints, but now onto the Category 1 climbing, with the peloton taking their foot off the gas, they are ready to commit.
Dropping Ludvigsson reduces the front group to 4: Kruijswijk and Majka are still with them.
And within 6km of the 16km climb, Majka is gone too. Kruijswijk holds on, and only loses ground at the very top of the climb - so being close enough to catch up on the descent. But the gaps have become significant!
Front
König
Bongiorno
Kruijswijk
1'27
Majka
2'20
Ludvigsson
3'04
Laengen
Konrad
Shushemoin
Siskevicius
4'24
Pedrero
Buchmann
Kastrantas
Cataford
Boom
Dzhus
Ivanov
Novikov
6'32
Figueiredo
8'45
Peloton
That's right, nearly 9 minutes to the peloton. It's not much threat to Alarcon, with Konig and Bongiorno starting the day 20 minutes down, but 9 minutes would be enough to put them above Monsalve, and into the Top 5 battle.
Any opportunity for seconds could add to that further too. There's no competition for the sprint, so fortune favours Bongiorno - leading at the time - gaining 6 bonus seconds, with 4 for Konig and 2 for Kruijswijk.
Onto the Passo Fedaia then. Another long climb, with 14.7km at an average gradient of 7.2%.
This time Kruijswijk is dropped for good, losing 2 minutes by the summit.
Morton has sent Dyball to lead the peloton, which is down to 44 riders. The gap is not down though, now at 12 minutes and 45 seconds! That's Bongiorno and Konig threatening the podium positions then...
The final climb is the Passo Pordoi, 13.6km at an average of 5.6%.
3km in, Bongiorno attacks!
He opens up a 35 second lead. Kruijswijk is at 3'40, and Majka at 5'44. Then there is a group of Novikov, Konrad, Laengen, Ludvigsson, Ivanov and Dzhus at 7'28.
The peloton have reduced the gap slightly, to 11'36, while reducing to 35 in size. They are 19km from the finish, nearly 6km behind the leaders, and finally, something happens. Monsalve attacks!
The response is led by Morton and Henao Montoya, with Velits, Cattaneo, Alarcon and Abal.
Meanwhile Bongiorno takes the summit, with his lead growing. 45 seconds on Konig, then 4 and a half minutes on Kruijswijk.
Morton and Henao have pulled away, in the moves from the peloton.
And Morton takes to the summit, now in 5th place on the road, and 'just' 8 minutes behind Bongiorno. Henao Montoya is alongside Ivanov, Ludvigsson and Novikov - while Alarcon is now his usual dominant self, and is actually a little behind Velits.
Monsalve, Cattaneo and Abal are next, 9 minutes behind Bongiorno, with the next group 40 minutes further back: featuring Galta, Reis, Nibali, Brambilla, Olivier, Talansky, Formolo, Kolesnikov, Sosnitskiy, Nesset, Carapaz, Kirsch, Scarponi, Vasyliv and Ignatenko.
While they are finishing climbing, others are already descending.
What a ride, what a day for Francesco Bongiorno. We will have to wait and see what GC position he will catapult too, but in the meantime, he can celebrate the stage win!
Leopold König comes in 2nd, 52 seconds later. The third 2nd place finish in a row for Vesuvio, also with good time gains coming.
Lachlan Morton is pushing it on the descent. Time to be gained on Velits in the battle for 2nd overall, but also on a surprisingly weak Alarcon.
3rd place for Kruijswijk, 4'40 behind. Last year his breakaways yielded stage wins at the Giro, just time this year, as he consolidates his position as Gazelle's best placed rider.
A long lonely day for Majka but he holds on for 4th, at 6'56 - and he was very nearly caught.
5th for Morton: 7'29.
Henao Montoya follows him in at 7'51, with Velits then at 8'17. Morton gains 48 seconds on Velits then, to trail by 1'11.
Finally Alarcon finishes at 9'05. Almost two minutes behind Morton, is the tide turning on this Giro? Novikov and Ivanov with him, holding on for a Top 10 result.
A group of 21 finishes at 9'31, led by Monsalve.
In here are all the riders who, GC-wise, have suffered the most by the gains of Bongiorno and Konig today. Abal, Cattaneo, and Nibali all join Monsalve in losing 2 positions - with Bongiorno now 5th overall and Konig now 6th.
Kruijswijk rises to 11th - remaining 3 places lost for Talansky, Galta, Brambilla, Reis, Olivier and Kolesnikov. Can we expect any of them in the breakaway on future stages?
The rest of the field struggled home after a long stage, but this is the end of the road for 28 riders. They have finished outside of the time limit. The best placed rider is Eyob. He started the day 58th overall, but crashed on Stage 14, clearly picking up an injury. Sprinters Petit and Ulanowski are gone, alongside leadout man Kragh Anderson. Wiesenhof lose 4 riders, while Strava, Spoitfy, Jayco and Ayubowan all lose 3 - with two lost for the teams classification leaders Hugo Boss.
But in fact, they do not lead the teams classification anymore! Gazelle have moved in to the lead there.
Finally, in the KoM classification, Alarcon scored nothing today and sees his lead reduced. He is on 96, while Kruijswijk has moved into 2nd on 68, with Bongoriono 3rd on 60, and Konig now 7th on 50.
