Giro d'Italia: Jhonatan Narváez outduels Enric Mas for victory on stage 11 as breakaway prevails

Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) completed a hat-trick of stage wins at the Giro d'Italia on stage 11, outsprinting Enric Mas (Movistar) at the finish in Chiavari to claim his third win of this race.

Diego Ulissi (XDS Astana) sprinted to third from a three-man chase group behind.

Narváez and Mas were the strongest survivors of the day's break, having both bridged across to the original 12-man move, which splintered and reduced over the final two categorised climbs on the route, and the climb to the Red Bull Kilometre.

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It was on this final uncategorised rise that the pair finally shook off the remainders of the break, going solo to contest the win. Despite Mas' efforts on the climbs, he could never shake Narváez, and at the finish, the Ecuadorian easily outpowered his breakaway companion to win.

Behind, the group of Ulissi, Chris Harper (Pinarello Q36.5), and Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) desperately tried to get back in contact with the leaders, and got within 15 seconds in the final 5km, but couldn't quite close the gap, and settled for racing for third, which Ulissi claimed.

After plenty of GC action on stages 9 and 10, the favourites finally had a more relaxed day on Wednesday, taking the coastal hills steadily and safely, with Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) rolling across the finish with the bunch to hold onto pink for another day.

"All day [was difficult]," Narváez said at the finish. "We started committing with the boys saying we have to jump in the breakaway, because that was our goal, but then we missed the first group, then we missed the second group. And then after two hours of hard racing I tried to jump straight to the breakaway, and that was difficult.

"Enric Mas was the strongest in the climbs, and I knew I had to play my game. He is stronger than me in the climbs of course, but I was remembering a book I was reading, and the book says 'If you don't have your game, just make your own game'. You would never see Michael Phelps running, he's a specialist in the pool, so I just tried to defend myself in the uphill.

"I was scared," Narváez said about the moment Mas launched his sprint. "Because he did the sprint and he nearly tried to close me into the barriers, I was on the limit, but it was amazing. All day was full gas, because we don't race just in the uphills, we race in the downhill also."

How it unfolded

It was another breakaway-friendly parcours on stage 11 of the Giro, and therefore, another big and drawn out fight to get into the move that was eventually allowed to go. Teams keen to be in it were battling to make sure they had the right rider in any given move, whilst the GC teams had to keep a close eye to not let anyone too threatening get away.

Multiple moves came and went in the first 50km of racing as the break tried to form, and eventually after 58km a group of three got away, with a larger group of nine hot on their heels. These two came together, to form a lead group of 12: Chris Harper (Pinarello-Q36.5), Andreas Leknessund, Markus Hoelgaard (both Uno-X Mobility), Ludovico Crescioli, Mattia Bais (both Team PoltiVisitMalta), Jasper Stuyven (Soudal-QuickStep), Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Nico Denz, Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Diego Ulissi, Alberto Bettiol (both XDS Astana) and Tim Namberman (Picnic PostNL Raisin).

At first, it looked like this break might be the one, but it didn't take long for the attacks – led by UAE Team Emirates-XRG – to start again, with Jhonatan Narváez, Enric Mas (Movistar) and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Intermarché) all launching efforts to try to get across to the leaders. The gaps were still small so it was still possible to bridge.

Up front, the injection of pace behind also made the break ride harder, which spelled the end for Naberman and Planckaert relatively early on the day, with Mas, Narváez and Van Eetvelt all trying to catch them. Those three had all made the junction with 82km to go, whilst Leknessund and Hoelgaard had been dropped, making it 11 in the lead.

Still though the attacks from behind would not halt, and another handful of riders made it across on the Passo del Termine: Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana), Warren Barguil (Picnic PostNL Raisin), and Filippo Zana (Soudal-QuickStep), plus Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani CSF 7 Saber), Alessandro Tonelli (Polti VisitMalta) and Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ United), though the latter three did not last long in the lead.

Over the next climb, the 9.6km Colle di Guaitarola, the attacks began which split up and reshaped the break. Mas, Harper and Ulissi looked strongest to start with, but then Narváez fought back from behind to get into the lead as the situation continued changing on the climb.

By the summit, the groups had come back together to make nine riders in the lead, now holding a gap of nearly four minutes over the peloton, making it clear that it would be someone in the front who would win the stage.

On the descent off the climb, a crash saw Zana, Van Eetvelt and Scaroni hit the deck out of the break, and shortly after on a minor rise, Vlasov put in a dig to get away from the leading group. The Red Bull rider was soon joined by Stuyven and Narváez, and they went into the final 35km with a narrow lead over the chasing group led by Mas and Harper. But with the Colla dei Scioli and a hilltop Red Bull KM still to come, there was a lot of time for the situation to change.

On the Colla dei Scioli, it didn't take long for Mas and Harper to close the gap to the leaders, with Ulissi, Barguil and Crescioli on their wheels. It was Scaroni who was behind trying to chase back on his own after his crash.

Continuing up the climb, the pace set saw Stuyven, Crescioli and Barguil lose contact as the strongest climbs came to the fore, though Crescioli made it back on with 27km to go. Behind, Netcompany Ineos and Visma-Lease a Bike were most active on the front of the heavily reduced bunch, just keeping things in control over the climb.

With 20km to go, the six leaders were 30 seconds ahead of the Scaroni and Barguil trying to chase back on, with the peloton at around 2:50 down.

The Colla dei Scioli was the final categorised climb, but the day's Red Bull Kilometre came at the top of a 4km climb, which ushered in another round of attacks with Mas and Narváez pushing the pace to break off the front. Harper initially managed to grind back to them, but couldn't follow the next acceleration from Mas. Two-time stage winner Narváez was forcing Mas to do all the work on the climb, with the Movistar rider rolling through the Red Bull KM point first.

The two stuck together down the descent, and from there it was 7km flat to the finish. The two leaders only had an advantage of around 20 seconds over the chasing group of Harper, Ulissi and Vlasov, with Mas possibly slightly soft pedalling in the front, trying to save something for the sprint.

Narváez tried a few times to test Mas in the final 5km, but it was difficult to make a difference on the flat run-in and it came down to the expected two-man sprint. Narváez led out early, with Mas forcing him to come through at 700m to go, but despite being in the wind for the longest time, Narváez finishing speed was easily superior, with Mas unable to come around.

The remnants of the break filled the rest of the top 10, and a few minutes later the peloton and the pink jersey rolled through the line all together, with no major GC action on stage 11. There was one big mover, though, with Chris Harper's efforts in the break rocketing him up from 17th to 10th.

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