It's Stage 20, and the final mountain stage of the race. But boy, what a test!
Seven categorised climbs:
Climb
Cat
Name
1
2
Passo Rolle
2
1
Passo di San Pellegrino
3
HC
Passo Duran
4
1
Zoldo Alto
5
HC
Passo di Giau
6
3
Passo Falzarego
7
HC
Passo Fedaia
And we are on familiar territory for this race. In Stage 11, Climbs 3, 4, and 5 were the pinnacle of the stage. Alarcon rode clear on the Passo Duran, to be joined by Velits - and together they crafted a three minute victory.
Today they are followed by two more climbs, including a summit finish at the Passo Fedaia. On Stage 15 the Passo di Giau was followed immediately by Fedaia, and then again by Pordoi - as Bongiorno and König rode towards breakaway triumph.
So many climbs means so many King of the Mountain points. Alarcon leads on 118 points, while Majka wears the jersey and is on 86 points. It's a gap to make up, but certainly doable if he can get in the breakaway. We also have Velits on 74, Kruijswijk 68, Morton 66 and Henao 64 - as other leading names to look out for.
Just how will the climbs be contested today? With so many climbs, and 218km in total it's going to be a long day.
And what a start! Just 6km in and both Alarcon and Morton are clear of the peloton!
There are already 6 riders up the road: Brambilla Kastrantas Kruijswijk Olivier Pedrero Talansky
With the riders placed 12th, 14th, 15th and 16th, it is a clear sign of intent. But Aramendia has launched the pursuit of Alarcon and Morton - with Laengen, König, Formolo and Reis also following closely.
Wiesenhof chase after them, and while Morton drops back, Alarcon likes to be evasive.
He rides across to the earlier attackers, and they now have a two minute lead.
Cattaneo chases at 53 seconds, with Maillet and Ludvigsson; with König, Laengen, Buchmann and Majka also in front of the peloton.
All of these groups connect, but nobody is willing to commit, and it looks like they will all drop back to the peloton. But no, Cattaneo goes again!
Joining Cattaneo are Olivier, König and Kruijswijk. A strong group! But Majka is leading the chase. clad in the KoM jersey, with Alarcon on his wheel and even helping a little too.
We haven't even started the first categorised climb of the day yet!
The peloton are already down to 37 riders only, with so many riders shelled out the back. And there's some crazy tactics from Festina - Dexia. Vasyliv, Affonso, and Bayly have all sat up and waited for Coquard. They are in group "A10", minutes off the pace, and this is disastrous news for their GC leader - 21st going into the stage.
Majka blows himself up as he tries to control the latest attack, but Aru takes over and does a stellar job - exactly what Brambilla needed. A lead that had got as high as 1'20 is wiped out. But immediately Talansky counter-attacks.
The other four jump onto his wheel, but it doesn't get a gap. A couple of kilometres later Kruijswijk tries again, this time followed by Reis and Cattaneo.
Again, it doesn't stick, and things settle for a period of calm. But still the pace is fast. The group is down to 30, with Ludvigsson and Laengen the latest to be dropped. Next group is Majka, Carthy, Ivanov and Dzhus; then Kastrantas; then Dyball, Pedrero, Konrad and Siskevicius. After that is Brown, Novikov, Shushemoin, Herrada and Sergis. Then at 3'40, Vasyliv is fighting back. He leads a group of Egger, Buchmann, Bonnin, Borisavljevic and Heider.
With just over 3km to the summit, Olivier attacks and is again joined by Cattaneo, König and Kruijswijk. They stay clear to the summit, with Cattaneo picking up the top points.
1
Cattaneo
10
2
König
8
3
Olivier
6
4
Kruijswijk
4
5
Reis
2
Onto the descent and there's a crash in the peloton! It does not look good.
Thomas Lövkvist is down, and isn't able to get going again. Desperate bad luck for him, he started the day 26th overall, but is now forced to abandon the race.
Only Olivier and Cattaneo press on with the attack on the descent, and with a 45 second lead, Brambilla launches after them.
They are 3, and the peloton is 24. Let's take a moment to see just who is there.
Many are isolated, including Morton, while Alarcon is the only rider left with two teammates. And they are the ones leading the peloton right now.
The advantage of Olivier and Cattaneo has opened up to 1'13, with Brambilla at 50 seconds. Meanwhile 1'12 behind the peloton are the first chasers: Ignatenko and Maillet.
Then it is 30 seconds to Laengen and Ludvigsson; another minute to Majka and Carthy; 24 more to Ivanov and Dzhus; and finally 10 more to where we now find Vasyliv. He has picked up a teammate in Kastrantas, and is with the lead Jayco support Dyball. It's a gap of three and a half minutes from here to the peloton.
Brambilla makes it 3 at the front, and with their lead 1'20 and rising, this might finally be the forming of the breakaway. König spots the danger, attacks and bridges across. A smart move - as now they lead by 3 minutes, and this is going to be the break of the day.
The peloton slow, and some of the dropped riders are able to get back on. This includes Vasyliv, who returns together with Dyball. Crisis averted!
With the lead hitting 4 minutes, Talansky decides that he too needs to be in there.
But oh this is not a popular development. Nesset is immediately send to the front by Galta. The Norwegian's tactics do appear quite different from his closest rivals, with no attacks from him yet. Instead he wants their efforts wasted, and Nesset is superb. He destroys the peloton - cutting it from 33 to 14 - and the breakaway gap is tumbling.
Bongiorno is dropped, and so is Nibali!
Talansky joined the front group, but it was not a breakaway of 5 for long, and they are caught.
There is a little lull in the pace, for a kilometre at least. We are only a kilometre out from the summit, and König is attacking again, taking the top points for this category 1 climb.
Kruijswijk tried to follow, but couldn't manage it.
1
König
16
2
Carapaz
12
3
Talansky
10
4
Cattaneo
8
5
Velits
6
6
Olivier
4
7
Brambilla
2
This leaves us with a group of 22, with a few of those dropped having recovered: Abal Alarcon Bongiorno Brambilla Carapaz Cattaneo Formolo Galta Henao Montoya Kolesnikov König Kruijswijk Monsalve Morton Nesset Nibali Olivier Reis Scarponi Talansky Velits Vosekalns
Giogieri and Kirsch cracked near the summit and are now 1'30 and 2 minutes behind. Ablenado is behind too, while Vasyliv's recovery was shortlived and he is now back to 3 minutes behind. Kennaugh lost out and is with Maillet, Ignatenko and Dyball at 4 minutes. Carthy is alone at 4'40
The big losers of Nesset's pace were eBuddy. 19th overall Aru is together with Majka, over 5 minutes behind - in a group with Ivanov, Laengen, Ludvigsson, Dzhus and Brown.
But the pace really isn't high right now.
Olivier attacks. Talansky joins him and will win the intermediate sprint. That lifts him back up to 11th overall, ahead of Galta!
Giogieri, Kirsch and Ablenado were all able to get back on before Reis decided to start lifting the pace. The Portugese rider picking up two bonus seconds for 3rd at the sprint. Cruelly for Vasyliv, the lifting of the pace happened just before he could regain contact.
Straight from the intermediate sprint, we begin the Passo Duran. Talansky and Olivier have a slender lead, and Reis is ensuring that they do not nearly go out of sight.
The story of the Duran is the story of Aru's recovery. Having summitted the previous climb nearly 5 minutes off the front, that was back to 2'30 at the sprint.
He keeps himself composed, and with teammate Majka following him. He starts closing the gap, riding up to Vasyliv and Ablenado. By this point Olivier and Talansky have been caught, but Carapaz is sustaining a good pace instead.
And now is where his efforts really kick in. He leaves Majka behind; drops Vasyliv; rides past a struggling Kirsh; and then Giogieri too - with the peloton now tantalisingly close.
Inside a kilometre from the summit, König attacks to win the first HC climb of the day, with Kruijswijk joining him.
1
König
20
2
Kruijswijk
14
3
Reis
12
4
Talansky
10
5
Alarcon
8
6
Cattaneo
6
7
Carapaz
5
8
Brambilla
4
9
Morton
3
10
Velits
2
11
Nibali
1
Alarcon takes his first points of the day, moving him on to 126. The day has not gone as Majka hoped, and he remains on 86 - now joined there by Kruijswijk. But with two wins and a second, König has scored 44 points already. Add that to the 50 which saw him in 10th place previously, and he has now moved into 2nd place of the competition.
And over the top, we see that Aru has made contact! He gets no points for his performance on that climb, but surely deserves it.
This now means that in the 23 that remain at the front of the race, we do have all of our GC Top 20. The three riding very well to be with them are 22nd overall Scarponi, 33rd overall Nesset, and 54th overall Vosekalns. Scarponi will be most disappointed to see Aru return, as he was set to move in to the Top 20 otherwise. Nesset did not go well in the early mountains, but put in a good mountain time trial yesterday, and has already shone as a domestique today. And Vosekalns is finally putting injury behind him, and displaying the form that saw him previously lead the race.
The Cat 1 Zoldo Alto is next, and we still have 86km to go!
The 23 stay together for most of the climb, with closest dropped rider Giogieri holding steady at a minute behind, just ahead of Kirsch, with a couple more minutes back to the next riders.
Near to the summit, Kirsch attacks again for mountain points, with Kruijswijk, but there might be more to it than that! Galta is now making his very first attack of the stage.
Nibali, Reis, Brambilla, Talansky, Vosekalns and Scarponi also attack!
König takes the points, taking him to 110.
1
König
16
2
Galta
12
3
Reis
10
4
Nibali
8
5
Kruijswijk
6
6
Brambilla
4
7
Talansky
2
Naturally it is Nibali who now takes to the front on the descent, and these 9 riders have opened up a gap of 2 minutes very quickly!
There are 16 chasers - with Giogieri and Kirsch having yo-yoed back into the group - but really it is just 1 chaser. Carapaz is really proving to be a thorn in the side of all of Alarcon's competitors, and he wipes out yet another dangerous move. And we're now climbing Passo di Giau, for the 3rd time this race.
9km to be climbed, but they are all content to wait for the top. König won this climb on Stage 15, and can be counted on today for lighting the touch paper on each climb. He does it here with 2.4km to go.
Kruijswijk follows again, but actually cracks and goes right back through the group and out of there.
Top points for König again. Galta is chasing - no wait, that's actually Nesset! Reis and Cattaneo too.
Carapaz leads the chase, and oooh, there's damage.
1
König
20
2
Nesset
14
3
Reis
12
4
Cattaneo
10
5
Carapaz
8
6
Alarcon
6
7
Olivier
5
8
Morton
4
9
Monsalve
3
10
Velits
2
11
Henao Montoya
1
Talansky is the last to hang on, but Abal now has to chase solo. Dropped and putting their faith in Nibali's descending to help them back are Galta, Bongiorno, Kolesnikov, Brambilla, Formolo and Aru.
Scarponi closely follows, but Kruijswijk has capitulated - 2 minutes further back, along with Vosekalns, Giogieri and Kirsch. Incidentally, the next group down the road is Vasyliv, Maillet, and Ignatenko - they trail by a further 3 minutes.
Here are our 12 front runners then:
Abal makes it back on, but the rest are struggling, and trail by a minute. The next climb is only a category 3, but still is 12km at a 4.8% average. We can see that Carapaz has now cracked too!
Only 6 points on offer here but still König is riding hard to maintain his narrow advantage. He has been the most aggressive rider of the stage, and now some who may have hoped to challenge him in GC are instead in difficulty.
6km from the summit, Cattaneo puts in an unchallenged attack.
He rides with him for a bit, but then moves on and drops him!
Round the hairpins they go, Galta, Nibali and Brambilla are close to making contact with the group.
It's the summit for Cattaneo, and the lead of 1 minute.
König caught at the top, and passed by Reis.
1
Cattaneo
6
2
Reis
4
3
König
2
Those 2 points take the Czech rider to 132 points. This is also the total that Alarcon is on. With one climb remaining in the Giro, the mountains classification is tied at the top!
Abal and Nesset struggled near the top and are back to Galta and Nibali - still just short. Brambilla in touching distance too.
But Bongiorno is really in trouble now. Together with Formolo and Kolesnikov, he is 2 minutes behind the Reis-led group of contenders. It's a provisional loss of 3 places - including to König - with maybe more to come.
Here's a sight of what all the gaps are, across the first 20 minutes of coverage, and all the way to the very back.
Reis kept on leading the 'peloton' down hill, and König struggles on his wheel. He can't hold it, and a gap opens up. Already committed to chasing Cattaneo, Reis happily takes the opportunity,
But now the whole group just switches off. Nobody takes up the chase of Reis, not even his closest rivals - Galta still having Nesset after all - and they cover the road looking at each other.
Beauty to the eyes of Bongiorno, who makes it back across!
Also of great significance to Mattia Cattaneo. 12km to go and he is starting the Passo Fedaia, the final climb. He has 53 seconds on Reis, and nearly 4 minutes on everyone else!
Actually over 4 minutes when Carapaz too regains contact, and he is straight through the group to break the monotony and get them riding again.
He hits them hard, real hard! Alarcon was ready and waiting for it, but nobody else was. Abal, Olivier, Morton and Velits are closest.
Scarponi is actually next. Ahead of Monsalve and Henao, who despite not having joined any of today's attacks, are not looking too impressive.
It's starting to reduce the lead too. While Cattaneo is moving to a minute ahead of Reis, his lead to the next group is 3'40 and falling.
Carapaz was already dropped once though, and his downhill momentum only lasts so long. He cracks again, the gap to Cattaneo returns to 4 minutes, and everything comes back together in that group.
Morton attacks!
But here he goes. Alarcon responds, and is the strongest.
Velits, Henao, Monsalve and Abal are able to match Morton. Galta chases alone, and then come Nibali, Olivier and Bongiorno.
At the very front, Reis is doing all he can to close down on Cattaneo, into the final 5 kilometres.
Galta pushes to catch up with those ahead, and find Monsalve and Abal coming to him. They are dropped by Velits, Morton and Henao.
If Bongiorno is a big winner from the descent slowdown - regaining 2 minutes and now able to stick with Nibali and Olivier - then the big loser is König. He is back with Talansky, Formolo, Kolesnikov, Brambilla and Nesset but visibily looks very bad. All those efforts are coming back to bite him now, so losing out on the time gained on some of his rivals so easily is a further blow.
GC battles to look out for as it stands:
- Cattaneo could go from 8th up to 5th
- Reis will be attacking the Top 10, up from 13th - Nibali and König as particular targets
- Monsalve and Abal would lose out there, but still battle each other, with Abal gaining on Bongiorno
- Galta also eyeing a Top 10 place, but may need to gain on Nibali to do so. On course for negating Talansky's time bonus gain.
- Bongiorno and König to limit their losses - with the Czech in particular danger
- Olivier on the up from 16th
- Kruijswijk falling down
- Can Scarponi find a way into the Top 20?
Alarcon has made it up to Reis. Was he just setting himself a challenge in allowing Cattaneo 4 minutes at the start of the climb? He only has one more minute to gain!
Bongiorno is now struggling again, dropped by Nibali and Olivier.
2km to go for Cattaneo! That Alarcon is still with Reis is surely a good sign, for him, and the gap has only really reduced to 50 second.
A minute behind, there's no separating riders 2nd to 4th on GC. It looks like the podium is going to be secure for both Velits and Morton. It is unfortunate they could not challenge Alarcon today, or fight for that elusive stage win.
40 seconds to Abal, Galta and Monsalve.
36 seconds to Nibali and Olivier.
38 seconds to Bongiorno.
22 seconds to Formolo, Talansky, Brambilla and Kolesnikov.
40 seconds to König and Nesset.
55 seconds to Aru.
32 seconds to Scarponi and Carapaz.
Here's that Talansky group:
Knowing the finish is close, Alarcon now makes one last bid for the stage win, dropping Reis.
While the others just battle on.
Final kilometre for Cattaneo!
He's going to do it! Matti Cattaneo will win the stage. If he goes on to win the Giro in future, he will look back on today as the day he really announced himself on the Grand Tour mountain stage.
Winning the Giro this year is going to be Alarcon, closing in to just 26 seconds in the end. He did already have 4 stage wins though, and secures both the Points and Mountain competitions. That's a lot of ranking points!
Fantastic ride by Reis to take 3rd place, at 1'21. Watch the clock now between him and Nibali. He needs a gain of 2'05 and it's looking close.
Henao will take 3rd place, securing himself 2nd in the points competition. 2nd overall is secured for Velits, 3rd overall for Morton and also the U25 classification - which was never really in doubt. A gap of 1'46 today.
Monsalve and Abal could not be separated today, and for much of the race. At 2'44 down, both are losing out to Cattaneo overall in that battle for 5th. Galta at 2'54, it doesn't look like it will be enough to break into the Top 10.
Over the line comes Nibali at 3'11. It's enough to keep him ahead of Reis, to move into at least 9th in GC. It also completes the Top 10 on the stage. Olivier is going to move into the GC Top 15 at the expense of Kruijswijk - and needs a minute to overtake Brambilla.
The suffering is clear behind. It's not Bongiorno next but Formolo at 4'43, then Koleniskov with Bongiorno at 4'54, Talansky at 5'04 and Brambilla at 5'10.
This is enough for Bongiorno to finish 8th overall and Talansky 13th unless he can pass König. Brambilla will lose out to Olivier.
König eventually finishes at 6'49 after a painful final climb. That 3 minute advantage on Reis and Galta was not enough - losing over 5 to Reis, and just under 4 to Galta. So he will drop down to 12th overall - but his efforts today have earned him 2nd place in the Mountains competition. Nesset with him will gain 7 GC positions to 26th. 19th on stage and overall for Aru.
Picking up on the next finishers:
- Scarponi (at 8'25) gained 5 seconds on Carapaz at the finish, but needed more than that to take 20th
- Vosekalns (9'40) goes from 54th to 42nd
- Kruijswijk (10'24) finishes near Giogieri and Kirsch. He loses 3 GC spots to 18th, but does gain one position for 3rd in KoM.
- Vasyliv (11'23) only ended up losing a place to Scarponi, finishing close enough to Kirsch today, to keep ahead of him - for 22nd place.
- As well as Nesset, Dyball moves into the Top 30. (Up from 34th). Lovkvist abandoning was one out of the way, while Konrad tumbled from 28th to 38th
Maillet finished the stage 28th at 14'27. This means that Ferrero - Samruk are the first team to have 3 finish today, and indeed they are nearly 5 minutes better than Hugo Boss in the end, to confirm a teams classification winning margin of over 13 seconds. Gazelle tumbled to 4th, behind eBuddy, after losing nearly 26 minutes today - that bad result from Konrad, plus with Sosnitskiy injured, and only just clinging on to his place in the Top 50.
What about the time limit?
Potts finishes 116th today, at a deficit of 1h21'27. There's 11 others with him, including sprinters Zabel, Van Poppel, Porsev, Groenewegen and Coquard. They've made the cut, and will be the last ones to do so.
19 riders failed to make it. Aramendia was the closest, only 2 minutes behind the Potts group - but not enough. Best placed was 72nd overall Canty. Meant to be Morton's 2nd best support, he picked up an injury a couple of stages ago. Former maglia rosa Gougeard is also out, as Iberia are left with only 2 riders. Sprinters missing out on a chane to fight for the final stage are Guarnieri, Ciolek and Avelino. The new, and final, maglia nera (or lanterne rouge) was also the last man to finish in the time limit today: Luke Keough.
And that's all from a very eventful stage. The decisions made by riders may not always have made sense, but attacks from the gun - and throughout the race - meant for a very eventful day, with so many riders having their moments.
