The final mountain stage and it's nothing to sneeze at. 174 km with a huge HC climb at the midpoint the Colle d'Esischie, then another category 1 climb before the finish in Chianale. The maglia rosa is most likely decided, but plenty of other things still to fight for today.
Carboni starts off today's attacks, we all know what he's after today. Preidler, Mavrikakis and Karnulin join him.
Many attacks followed and the peloton said "have at it". So we have a huge breakaway group of 19 riders:
Carboni
Parra Bustamente
Preidler
Roman
Dina
Sivakov
Nessett
Mavrikakis
Bernal
Kastrantas
Izagirre
Rochas
Nych
Habtemichael
Karnulin
Rucigaj
Geoghegan Hart
Dyball
Vervaeke
40 km into the stage, we're still on the flatter part of the course. The peloton being led by King Power and Puma have been taking it easy. The breakaway are ahead by almost 6 minutes.
The 3 riders here most motivated by the KOM points cross the line for the first cat. 3 climb are Carboni, Roman and Mavrikakis. The Italian just slightly extends his lead over both, although his potentially biggest rivals are in the peloton.
Here we go. The breakaway start the big climb of the day, Colle d'Esischie. The HC climb is 18 km long with an average gradient of 8.6%. We'll probably quickly find out who has the legs today.
Nych fell away early. Domestiques in this breakaway, Kastrantas and Dina finishing their work. Rucigaj also dropping back.
Habtemichael, Izagirre and Parra Bustamente are the next to drop off. 5.5 km to the top of the climb.
Roman and Mavrikakis ahead of start to struggle. This is great news for Carboni and his maglia azzurra ambitions.
Saying that, he and Nessett lose contact with the leaders quickly after.
Gazelle with two good options in this breakaway, but it seems Karnulin is the stronger today as Geoghegan Hart lets go of the group with 2 km to go.
Karnulin is also struggling now. Sivakov trying his best to hold on, but Preidler and Bernal are showing why they should be the two strongest climbers here.
Preidler and Bernal take the 20 and 14 pts, but neither is really focused on that. They're after a stage win.
The rider that is in desperate need of these points is Carboni as he makes it to the top in 6th place. That's 6 more pts which now puts him 14 ahead of Herklotz.
We don't know the exact deficit of the peloton, but there is a group of 52 riders going over the top of this climb. All the GC favourites are safely here.
Sivakov and Karnulin make their way back to the two leaders as we start the category 1 climb Colle di Sempeyre. 17 km at 7.8% another long hard climb for the riders.
Carboni and Nessett start the climb 2'30'' behind the leader with Geoghegan Hart somewhere in between. The img]https://pcmdaily.com/images/mg/2021/Micros/iso.png[/IMG] Roman, Mavrikakis "group" is another minute behind.
Karnulin is the weakest link among the leaders and he starts going backwards 5 km from the top.
Our 3 leaders make it to the top together. They've opened up a 3 minute gap on Karnulin and the peloton by some information is around 8 or 9 minutes behind. The stage honors will be decided between them.
In fighting fashion Carboni collects the last two KOM points here and it's now confirmed. He will be this Giro's King of the Mountains.
We haven't paid too much attention to the favourites, but the next group over the top is made up of 3 surviving breakaway riders and Areruya?! The Rwandan has 1'30'' on the other favourites.
Formolo is not far behind him having picked up Parra Bustamente from the original breakaway.
Meintjes also making a move on the descent.
Back to the front of the race. Our 3 leaders start the final climb to Chianale. This is a flatish climb averaging only 4.4%, but there are 9% ramps that could be good for attacking.
Areruya, Formolo, Meintjes and a lot of the remaining escapees are caught before the start of the climb. 17 km to the finish for them.
Movement at the front for the race! Preidler attacks, Sivakov responds, but Bernal leaves a gap.
Bernal got back on the wheel after the first attack, but just as he did Sivakov attacks on the steeper section! It's going to be difficult for the Colombian to catch up now.
Attack in the group of favourites also! Morton on the move with Eastman. Trusty Warbasse is chasing on behalf of Guldhammer.
But Herklotz says let me show you how it's done?! He blows past both of them! He's too far back to win the stage and the KOM jersey is gone, so he must be thinking ciclamino.
Back to the front. Preidler has attacked again and has a gap on Sivakov with 6 km to go. The Austrian has had a disappointing race so far, but he's in fine form today.
Morton and Eastman get back to Herklotz. Dombrowski and Kudus just controlling things and mostly looking at each other.
Bernal almost catches up with Sivakov, while Preidler is the last 2 km.
Herklotz puts in another dig. He's looking at 4th place on the stage at best.
Meanwhile Preidler makes it to the finish to win stage 20 of the Giro d'Italia. No celebrations as he could well be looking to jump up a few places on GC also.
Bernal outsprints Sivakov for 2nd place. The bonus seconds are now gone which means...
Kudus has to try and get gap on Dombrowski in the last 2 km!
Herklotz finishes the stage in 4th place. That's 13 pts more towards the ciclamino jersey.
Kudus makes his late move in the last kilometer! Surely he's left this too late?!
Eastman outsprints Morton for 5th place. Karnulin is 7th.
Kudus couldn't make up on any ground on Dombrowski as they cross the line 9th and 10th. Chiarello 8th.
Barguil, Areruya, Formolo, Reis and Guldhammer all finish on the same time as Dombrowski and Kudus.
Meintjes loses an additional 28''. Berhane 1'23'' and Sicard has a bad day losing 2'07'' to the other favourites.
So the top 6 spots in the GC stay the same. Chiarello has been the model of consistency and has climbed up to 7th. Barguil and Areruya also profit today as they both gain two places. Berhane falls to 10th. Sicard's bad drops him all the way to 13th. He's been the major disappointment among the GC contenders.
Herklotz has extended his lead in the points classification to 30 pts over Yates. Which means the Brit has to at minimum finish 2nd tomorrow and German score no points to finish tied at top the ranking. Carboni scored the points he needed today to secure the KOM victory and Areruya will ride into Milano in white.
Giro d'Italia - Stage 20 
