Giro d'Italia stage 17 LIVE: Long, punchy day promises to be one for the breakaway
Breakaway action is possible on this 200km hilly stage to Andalo
Another counter attack, this time by a Movistar rider, ahd sparked a flurry of new moves out of the peloton. This is still far from settled down.
Ghebreigzabhier counters out of the peloton to try and bridge up to the leaders.
It's actually a 7-man group that leads the race: specifically: Leknessund, Christen, Valgren, Cavagna, Larsen, Tonelli and Tarozzi.
Now this group is beginning to make progress, increasing their lead to 10 seconds.
A new group of 6 has formed and has a fragile lead on the peloton.
A few more riders joined Stuyven, but UAE's Bjerg took a big turn at the front of the peloton to bring them all back.
That sparks another wave of attacks, Jasper Stuyven the latest to try.
180KM TO GO
Mihkels, Jacobs and Froidevaux have been caught, so the peloton is all back together again!
They've all been brought back by the peloton, and the 3 leaders only have a very slender lead of a few seconds.
The Polti duo have been caught by a small group of attackers from out the peloton.
Bais and Maestri are the two Polti riders who attacked, and are still ahead of the peloton, but behind the three leaders.
Two Polti riders are the latest to try and jump out of the peloton.
190KM TO GO
Froidevaux, Jacobs and Mihkels lead the peloton by 20 seconds, but there's still plenty of interest and activity in the latter by riders eager to get up the road.
Flat tyre for Arrieta. He's one of the riders you'd back to get into the break on a stage like today's.
Jacobs and Froidevaux are the two riders leading the race with Mihkels.
Narváez makes his first move to get up the road - and inevitably has Maglia Ciclamino rival Magnier glued to his wheel!
Mihkels is up the road with a Tudor and Movistar rider.
Dylan Groenewegen has had to stop for a mechanical.
Martin Marcellusi has been brought back, and three new riders lead the race - Mihkels, and two others.
Martin Marcellusi is the first rider to get a small gap with an attack.
NSN are the most lively team so far, but no gaps have been estbalished yet.
Today's stage might feature over 3,000m of climbing but that's all to come later. The first 50km are all flat.
Just 1 more kilometre in the neutralised zone before the stage is set to start.
One battle set to intensify today is that for the Maglia Ciclamino. Having gained some more points yesterday, Jhonatan Narváez now lies just two points behind leader Paul Magnier, and today looks like prime territory for the Ecuadorian. He will surely try to get into the break to mop up more points, both at the finish and the intermediate sprint 140km into the stage, and Soudal-QuickStep will likely do all they can to prevent him from doing so.
Large crowds have assembled in Cassano d'Adda to see the riders off from the unofficial start.
With such a breakaway-friendly parcours, and with 16 teams still lacking a stage win at the race, there will be a huge number of riders wanting to get into the breakaway, so brace yourself for another hectic start to the stage as riders fight to form the definitive group.
With such a breakaway-friendly parcours, and with 16 teams still lacking a stage win at the race, there will be a huge number of riders wanting to get into the breakaway, so brace yourself for another hectic start to the stage as riders fight to form the definitive group.
Today’s parcours has one outcome written all over it: breakaway success. Not hard enough for the GC riders, but too hard for the sprinters, many riders will have spied this as one of, if not the, final chance to win a stage, and will therefore put their all in making this one succeed.
After yesterday’s excursion into the mountains, and fourth stage victory for Jonas Vingegaard, today’s parcours is far punchier, with three category three climbs, plus an uphill to the finish
Buongiorno and welcome to stage 17 of the Giro d'Italia!
