Giro d'Italia: Ciccone wins stage 16

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The snow-covered Passo Gavia may have been absent, but a mist-enshrouded Passo del Mortirolo proved enough to provoke significant developments at the Giro d’Italia on stage 16. Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) won the stage from the breakaway, picking off his last remaining companion Jan Hirt (Astana) in a two-up sprint, as Richard Carapaz (Movistar) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) put more time into Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma).

Roglic had looked so assured in the maglia rosa a week ago, but the cracks in his armour that had been exposed in Como on Sunday were pried open as Nibali went on the offensive on the Mortirolo.

The two-time Giro winner, who insisted on Monday’s rest day that he’d be content with nothing but victory, attacked before the halfway point of the 11.9km, 10.9 per cent climb. Roglic was initially able to follow race leader Carapaz but soon lost contact and found himself in damage-limitation mode. By the top, he was 1:30 behind his two main rivals and would only manage to claw back eight seconds on the descent and 15km run-in to Ponte di Legno, dropping to third overall.

Fausto Masnada (Androni-Giocattoli), who had also been in the break, took third on the stage, while Nibali and Carapaz were in the next group to cross the line, alongside Mikel Landa (Movistar) – who committed to the Carapaz cause – and the EF Education First duo of Hugh Carthy and Joe Dombrowski. Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) had been in that select group but lost contact in the closing kilometres and finished 22 seconds back.

Roglic, who’d settled into a chasing group with with Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) and Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), crossed the line 1:22 down on Nibali and Carapaz, his chances of overall victory suffering another big blow. Carapaz remains in the maglia rosa, extending his reign atop the general classification to 1:47. The man in second place, however, is now Nibali, with Roglic third at 2:09.

The damage was worse for Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos), who lost a further 41 seconds and ceded the white jersey to Lopez, and for Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe), who lost more than three minutes to the top GC riders. As Majka falls to sixth overall, Landa moves up to fourth, 1:06 behind Roglic. Mollema is still fifth, while Lopez, who had something of a yo-yo stage, finally made up ground on GC and now finds himself seventh at 6:17. Yates and Sivakov remain eighth and ninth overall, respectively, while Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) drops three placed but remains in the top 10.

Breakaway success

The riders set out under cloud from Lovere, with the mountains ahead shrouded in mist. Despite the absence of the Gavia, the stage packed some 4,800 metres of elevation gain into 190km, with the climbs of Cevo and Aprica added either side of the half-way mark before the Mortirolo and the final haul to Ponte di Legno.

The road went uphill almost from the off, and it was on the Passo de la Presolana – uncategorised but still a considerable ascent – that a breakaway group of 21 definitively went clear, containing the usual blend of stage-hunters and GC domestiques. In there were: Jan Hirt, Pello Bilbao and Davide Villella (Astana), Damiano Caruso and Antonio Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Mikel Nieve and Christopher Juul-Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott), Fausto Masnada and Mattia Cattaneo (Androni-Giocattoli), Francisco Ventoso (CCC Team), Lukasz Owsian (CCC Team), Joe Dombrowski and Nate Brown (EF Education First), Andrey Amador (Movistar), Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Francois Bidard (AG2R La Mondiale), Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), Jai Hindley (Sunweb), Michael Schwarzmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Mikkel Honoré (Deceuninck-QuickStep).

Movistar controlled the pace in the peloton, choosing to keep the large group on a relatively short leash. The gap was three minutes at the top of the Presolana, and rose to 4:30 after the descent and stretch in the valley to the foot of the Cevo. It was all calm on the first categorised climb of the day and Movistar still had the break at 4:40 at the top, whereupon Ciccone hit out to crest first and extend his lead in the mountains classification. The break found another 30 seconds or so on the false flat roads that led to the Aprica climb, which passed in similar fashion. Movistar got the last out of their rouleur Jasha Sutterlin but crested in numbers, 5:30 after Ciccone had repeated his trick by collecting the maximum nine mountains points, despite a two-pronged effort from the Androni duo.

Ventoso attacked on the descent and the uncohesive group briefly split on the approach to the Mortirolo but in the end they took on the climb with a lead of 5:50. Brown went hard on the lower slopes to thin the break before moving aside. He seemed to be trying to set up Dombrowski but the American climber soon lost contact with the five remaining riders: Hirt, Nieve, Caruso, Ciccone, and Masnada. Hirt went on the offensive, riding constantly out of the saddle and dropping Masnada and Nieve in turn. Ciccone and Caruso would come back to join the Czech rider and they took on most of the climb as a trio. As the rain began to pelt down, Caruso, who’d be called upon later for Nibali, dropped away, leaving Ciccone to collect maximum points once again and begin the treacherous descent with Hirt for company.

The Italian looked the more assured descender but still had Hirt for company when the road flattened out with 15km to go. At that point, he looked over his shoulder and found the Czech rider planted on his wheel, unwilling to come through for a turn. Cue sustained remonstration from the Italian, who repeatedly swung his arm in the air in exasperation. His team car even came up to Hirt to try and force him to contribute.

With a lead of 4:15, victory was theirs for the taking but Ciccone was understandably unwilling to tow his companion to the line. After a brief attack, he went back for a longer conversation but still Hirt wouldn’t work, and Ciccone fiddled worriedly with his race radio. When Hirt’s teammate Lopez, who’d attacked over the top of the Mortirolo, was taken back by Carapaz and Nibali, Hirt finally hit the wind in the final three kilometres.

Ciccone was still left to shoulder the responsibility heading into the home straight, but he proved to be the strongest rider as he opened the two-up sprint and only gained ground by the time he hit the line. As he did so, he swung his arms as wildly as he had done earlier, thumping his chest to celebrate a second Giro win, after the one on his debut in 2016. With the blue jersey now firmly on his shoulders, it has been an outstanding Giro for the 24-year-old.

“I’ve been waiting for this second stage win for two years now. So I yelled with joy on the finishing line because it’s been a complicated day with lots of rain and cold,” he said. “Jan Hirt didn’t want to cooperate so it’s been a bit nervous between us but at the end I’m happy with everything.”

GC fireworks

After Astana had injected some pace on the approach, Movistar took up the reins again at the start of the Mortirolo, though Nibali clearly had his own agenda. Firstly he sent Valerio Agnoli to the front, and when Movistar – now down to Pedrero, Landa, and Carapaz – had returned to calm the pace once more, he called on Domenico Pozzovivo to lift it once more. The diminutive Italian had an immediate impact as Lopez briefly lost contact and Majka and Yates were more definitively dropped, along with Roglic’s final teammate Sep Kuss.

Nibali smelled blood and launched his attack on the steepest section of 18 per cent, still almost 7km from the summit. He quickly moved clear as the GC group shattered behind. Carapaz still had Pedrero and Landa for company but suddenly the only other riders with the pink jersey were Roglic, Lopez, and Mollema.

Hugh Carthy (EF Education First) set off and managed to join Nibali, who soon found reinforcement from his brother who dropped back from the break. Yet they were unable to get much further than 15 seconds up the road as Movistar managed the situation impressively. That pace-setting, however, did for Roglic, who lost contact along with Mollema just past the half-way mark. The double stage winner was in turn caught by a group containing Yates but it was panic stations since he found himself 30 seconds behind the maglia rosa and 45 behind Nibali.

Two thirds of the way up, as the rain started to pour down, Nibali – still with Carthy in tow – left his brother behind and began to find some time again. Pedrero had to leave it to Landa and the Spaniard stemmed the tide, bringing Carapaz back to Nibali with 3km to go. Lopez, who’d dangled behind the maglia rosa, launched a brief attack but they settled in as a quintet: Nibali, Carthy, Carapaz, Landa, Lopez. At that point, Roglic, still with Yates, was more than a minute back, but had support from Bouwman, who’d dropped back from the break.

Lopez soon attacked again and Carthy was briefly dropped but otherwise those five rode the final kilometres of the Mortirolo together, Landa leading the way and committing to the Carapaz cause. The group grew to seven when Amador and Bilbao dropped back from the break. Lopez and Bilbao took off just before the summit to take on the descent with the safety of a small buffer, while the others grabbed rain capes. As they came across the top of the Mortirolo, that maglia rosa group was 3:55 behind the break and 1:30 ahead of Roglic, Yates and Mollema, with Majka, Sivakov and others further down the mountain.

Everyone got down the treacherous descent – twisty and covered in surface water – in one piece. The maglia rosa group seemingly took minimal risks, since Lopez and Bilbao found 30 seconds, while Roglic managed to reduce his arrears to 45 seconds.

Run-in

At the end of the descent, Caruso dropped back from the break and set about doing the lion’s share of the pulling of the maglia rosa group on the false flat run-in. While Amador was dropped, Landa came through for a turn, sensing a need to keep the advancing Roglic at bay. They soon caught Lopez, just after Bilbao had peeled off, and when Brown and Cattaneo were caught from the break, there were eight in the maglia rosa group, 3:20 behind the leading duo with 8km to go.

The cooperation was much better than has been seen in GC groups so far at this Giro, even if Carthy and Dombrowski sat in. Carapaz even started pulling with 7km to go, and the gap to Roglic moved back out to one minute and then, after another kilometre, 1:15. A saving grace for the Slovenian came in the form of Yates’ teammate Nieve, who’d been in the break and turned his focus to dragging that quartet – Mollema being the final member – along.

Lopez was dropped on a sharper rise just outside the flamme rouge and paid dearly, but otherwise the pink jersey group pressed on all the way to the line. Nibali had successfully driven the knife into Roglic, but Carapaz again proved unshakeable and moved one significant step closer to Verona.

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