The 2nd week ends with another tough mountain stage. The final by far not as difficult as yesterday as the last couple of kilometers are on rather low slopes but the 4 mountains before that really add to it and give lots of opportunites to attack.
Yesterday Spilak made himself the GC`s top favourite gaining on Herklotz and is now 51s ahead of him.
Gesink, who started late but then showed great climbing is in 3rd 1'31 behind but already some gap to the non-podium spots.
Schleck the best of the rest and reigning GC champ at 3'41 closely followed by Haig, Hirt and Quintana all under 5min.
Yates, Foromo, Konig right now in the top10 with Bongiorno, Henao, Olivier and Alarcon just outside and Oomen completing the top15 and actually those the best team leaders before some 2nd riders start to mix up such as Goos, Kruijswijk, Dekker alongside the Norwegian teams Aker and Grieg with some riders as well.
Breakaway time and well, the KoM hunt opened yesterday with several decent climbers having scored some points.
So it`s not a huge surprise to see several of those names again in the break trying to open up a gap in that contest.
Six more riders trying to join them and actually are successful in doing so a bit later: Aru (18pts) Raileanu (16pts) Kolesnikov (16pts, GC 21st) Smith (8pts) Nesset (GC 18th) Lunke (GC 19th)
Tinkoff and Aker the only teams to double up their numbers now. 18 different teams in total leaving Isostar, Puma, Generali, Air France, EA Vesuvio and Podium Ambition the only teams without a rider.
Most focus on their GC riders while last might not have the necessary climbers for such stage.
Dall'Oste won the KoM in the 2016 Giro d'Italia being a wildcard rider back then for Lierse.
Still with Lierse, still a wildcard rider, still going for the KoM as he takes the early Cat.2 in front of Aru, Vosekalns, Ssabagwanya and Nesset.
Surprisingly no interest by some others with some scoring already.
Van Niekerk remains in the lead with 35pts with Aru moving up to 3rd and 26pts with Spilak`s 28pts in between.
Also Vosekalns up to 18pts now.
To mention some riders being dropped. Surprisingly Dion Smith from the break is behind just like Aker`s Yzeiraj (who is easily one of the weakest climbers though).
And from the peloton one single rider already behind in sprinter Bouhanni, who could have a tough day here seeing the amount of climbing still to come.
Railleanu taking the Cat.1 moving up to 3rd with 32pts now.
Behind him only 6 more riders with the following order over the line:
Goos-Aru-Van Niekerk-Dekker-Lunke-Dall'Oste.
No points for the 10 behind with a small gap and also Smith/Sirironnachai still in between this group and the peloton.
KoM wise Aru up to 2nd with 36 slowly closing in on Van Niekerk`s 43pts. Also Goos 24 and Dekker 20 climbing.
The peloton is a bit over 5min behind and down to 63 riders.
Repsol with Pedrero, Air France with Edet, Isostar with Tarvis/Roman, Puma with Mager/Hadi, Moser with Cink and T-Mobile with Wohrer are the teams working right now.
Generali and EA Vesuvio saving energy with multiple riders in the pack.
Biggest names being dropped right now are some of the main support riders: Zardini (GC 24th) Ndayisenga Koch Mai Jaramillo Cataldo
Good news, they have not given up yet and try to make a come back as some of their leaders only have 1 more team mate with them otherwise.
In the break KoM leader Van Niekerk can`t follow any more and has the other 16 drive away.
With 2.2 km to the top this is quite unfortunate for him.
Meanwhile the first GC riders are getting isolated behind even though the dropped group of domestiques around Jaramillo/Zardini/Mai/Ndayisenga are almost back.
As more riders such as J.Schleck, Hugenhaben, Dees are dropped at least three riders are isolated now with 53km to go: Olivier (Dekker in front) Bongiorno (Van Niekerk in front) Yates (Turgis in front)
Also Konig (Warchol in front) basically isolated as his last support is struggling.
The points on the Cat.2 go to Goos, who has gapped the others with Dall'Oste following.
Aru-Dekker-Lunke the next.
This means Aru is up to 1 point now to Van Niekerk and Goos at -9 points as well.
After the top some gaps in the break.
Group Vosekalns, Railleanu, Kruijswijk struggles to follow the others and even further behind Nesset as decently placed rider while the others mainly were weaker climbers, who were expected to lose at one point.
Kolesnikov still up there with a chance to win another stage but first they need to catch Goos.
Weird things in the peloton!
While some helpers made it back and chased such as Jaramillo, Ndayisenga or Kangert the first GC captain struggles and we haven`t even reached the road towards the longest climb: Quintana, 7th in GC is dropped with 48km to go and in need to ride himself to make it back again. And this also sees a split with just 22 riders in front now which contain only: Spilak, Guerreiro Herklotz, Arndt, Mager Gesink, Latour, Teuns Schleck Alarcon, Ndayisenga Henao Montoya Hirt Olivier Haig Yates Bongiorno Formolo Konig Oomen Tvetcov Iturria
With Quintana it`s Godoy, Novikov, Rybalkin, Poljanski, Capenter, Kangert and Schlegel now and Jaramillo again dropped further ack into group Rosch/Mai/Koch/Zardini/Cataldo.
Just like in the peloton where more and more helpers drop on the Cat.1 then, also the breakaway is splitting when Goos attacks with 2km to the top.
With him only Lunke, Dall'Oste, Dekker, Kruijswijk, Aru and Kolesnikov after others have made it back on the easier parts.
After a moment, where Latour was the only support rider left in the peloton and pace dropped a bit, we see the GC attacks, that were expected on the Colle San Carlo.
With 2,4km left and the steepest sections Yates initiates the attack.
Alarcon, Spilak, Formolo, Schleck, Herklotz, Olivier immediately react and try to follow.
Gesink just after them with Latour in front of him trying the calmer method.
Hirt, Konig, Bongiorno behind him with Haig, Henao Montoya and Oomen further back of the group struggling a bit it seems to follow that pace.
It seems so as if Yates would open a gap while the others remain in the reduced group.
Goos has gained quite a bit on that steep sections and goes over the top solo with a gap of 1min even to Dall'Oste/Lunke and another few seconds to Kruijswijk, Dekker, Aru and Kolesnikov, which is also the order over the line. (Vosekalns etc. dropped fully)
KoM wise this means Goos takes the lead with 50pts ahead of Aru 46 and Van Niekerk 43.
Dall'Oste up to 32 just like Railleanu and Dekker on 30.
Quintana just made it back before the attacks started but now is in trouble again 800m to the top. With him Tvetcov, Iturria, Warchol, Godoy, Majka, Roson and Kangert.
Yates has opened a dangerous gap of 2min! He is up to riders of the break, which are Nesset and Hosek, still 3'40 behind Goos in front.
But it`s time for Arndt and Latour to increase the pace. Those two so far being the very best support riders of the Giro 2019 being with the leaders the longest.
Except for the top15 (but Quintana) the only other helpers in that group are Kangert and Rybalkin!
The full overview and time gaps with just 8km to go and after the descent!
Yates in fact descended 20s faster than the favourites and attacks the top5 even.
Goos in especially but also Kruijswijk, Dekker could improve a lot in the GC.
And meanwhile Lunke and Dall'Oste were able to reduce the gap a bit in the fight for the stage win.
4.3km left and after Latour did a lot of effort to reduce the gap, it`s Herklotz to attack. Just 5.6% at the moment and soon the short downhill section will come as well. But some riders seem to struggle in the group behind where Spilak and Gesink obviously are the first to accelerate as well to bring Herklotz back.
Struggling are Oomen, Novikov, Konig alongside all helpers left.
Back to the front though and there simply didn`t happen anything as Lunke and Dall'Oste only descended fast but on the uphill really struggled being caught by the riders behind.
Goos takes the win and could improve into the top10 even showing that he is the potential to lead a GT with his allrounder skills.
Kruijswijk up to 2nd ahead of Kolesnikov, Dekker and Aru. Quite a finish for those 4 having clearly worked well together and just 36s behind Goos!
Lunke at 1'23 totally collapsed on 6th.
Yates, the huge GC winner today. Up to 7th at 1'36 and gaining big on all rivals.
Mamykin behind him.
Spilak and Herklotz with a last attempt to gain time and distance each other. Side by side they accelerate on the final kilometer opening a gap to the others.
With that acceleration they got some lucky seconds here as they are counted same time as Nesset, Dall'Oste, Hosek and Raileanu from the break. The Lierse rider really went backwards basically in the end from a potential stage win or podium to 10th losing more than 2min.
The full group at 2'47, which is more than 1min behind Yates!
Bad luck for this group around Schleck and the other GC riders as they are given 3'14, which is 27s to the duo in front, which is likely 15s too much as Nesset`s time was taken.
Anyway, hurting a lot more is the gap of 1'38 to Yates.
They are gaining on Konig though, who is at 4'40 after being dropped by that earlier Herklotz attack and a huge loss for Quintana at 7'07.
This is the second rider after Henao Montoya yesterday, that might have lost the top5 chances here.
Right now Yates actually moves into 4th closely followed by Schleck being the top5 favourites with Haig, Hirt and Formolo following.
Goos then up to 9th and Kruijswijk in 10th!
Bongiorno, Henao and Olivier being the unlucky ones to being moved backwards with those riders jumping in between while Konig and Alarcon complete the top15 with Quintana and Oomen just behind.
2 riders were over the time limit of which Bouhanni had to be expected seeing his early struggle. The other is Mareczko, the third Lierse rider. Good that Gaviria so far didn`t need a leadout to score pretty well as his full train is out of the race by now.
