It's been a fraught 24 hours for Richard Carapaz at the 2025 Giro d'Italia, but the EF Education-EasyPost racer has been as resilient as ever despite the challenges, and after the first big mountains test, the Ecuadorian champion is still exactly where he needs to be overall.
At the finish of Thursday's rain-soaked, crash-filled stage to Naples and with Carapaz having fallen hard himself as well as several teammates, the mood amongst the tiny knot of grimy-faced EF racers as they grabbed recovery drinks from support staff was anything but upbeat.
But 24 hours later, as Carapaz donned a warm rainjacket and got ready for the long descent back off the Tagliacozzo climb to the team bus, the EF Giro leader was in a much better state of mind.
Eighth at the summit of the climb, Carapaz came through the tough mountain challenge as the last rider home in the first group behind stage winner Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
It was true he had not gone on the attack like Colombian Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) or Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) on the Tagliacozzo. But after all the challenges of the previous stage, keeping his GC options more than intact on such a hard day must have felt like a victory in itself.
"Yesterday we were really lucky, there were four of us [who] went down but nobody in particular was hurt as it first seemed," Carapaz, now tenth overall at 38 seconds, explained.
"This morning I woke up feeling in a bit of pain but we had the feeling it was all going to be fine.
"We knew today was a very explosive finish, and the fastest one won. But for my part, we've done very well."
After such a collectively difficult day on Thursday, Carapaz praised the EF squad for working to keep him out of trouble on the more complicated or dangerous parts of the day, and then dropping him off in a perfect position to fight it out with the other GC challengers.
"To be up there was a big point in our favour," he concluded. "We did get knocked about a bit on Thursday and we have to go on recovering. But it didn't affect me so much as it could have, and I hope to keep heading back in the right direction."
Like all of the GC contenders, Carapaz now has to face the daunting challenge of the gravel roads of Tuscany on Sunday, and he then will be hoping to handle the stage 10 time trial against specialists of the calibre of Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) as best he can.
After that the race will hit the mountains again, where the EF star and 2019 Giro d'Italia winner will surely be much more in his element – and likely able to perform even better than he already did on the slopes of Tagliacozzo, too.
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