Giro d'Italia: Caicedo wins on Mount Etna as Thomas, Yates lose ground

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Jonathan Caicedo (EF Pro Cycling) claimed a memorable stage 3 at the Giro d’Italia, winning alone atop Mount Etna after surviving from the day’s break to take the biggest win of his career. 

The rider from Ecuador won alone ahead of Giovanni Visconti (Vini Zabu-KTM) but the battle for the stage win only told one side of the day’s action with the race for the maglia rosa seeing Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) fade out of contention. Thomas crashed in the neutralized zone and was dropped even before the final climb started, while Yates slipped back on the lower slopes of Mount Etna.

The GC contenders attacked each other repeatedly on the final climb with Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) putting in a huge dig with 3.5km to go. Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe), Domenico Pozzovivo (NTT Pro Cycling) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) formed a chase group behind the Dutchman but they too would concede time – albeit a fraction of the time lost by Yates and Thomas – with Kelderman putting 12 seconds into Nibali’s group.

The Sunweb rider crossed the line in fourth place, just a few seconds after Harm Vanhouke (Lotto Soudal), however Joao Almeida’s 11th place on the stage was enough to give the QuickStep rider the maglia rosa after the overnight leader Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grendiers) dropped back to assist Thomas.

After three stages of this year’s Giro d’Italia, it’s Almeida who leads by less than a second over Caicedo, with Pello Bilbao (Bahrain McLaren) in third at 37 seconds. Kelderman leads the rest of the GC riders in fourth with Yates now at 3:46 and his Giro d’Italia hopes hanging by a thread.

For Almeida, the result was a huge moment in his young career.

“Today was just trying to hold as much as I could. I knew I had good legs since the beginning - I was feeling good. In the end it was just a sufferfest until the finish. I knew (I could take the maglia rosa) in the final 3km I was feeling good, I would never expect to be in this position and I'm really happy with this. I hope tomorrow morning I will feel this. It will be a really hard task, of course we will do everything we can. We also have strong teammates so I think we can make a good Giro.”

As for Thomas, after losing over ten minutes, his GC bid is over. The 2018 Tour de France winner came into the race as one of the favourites and he could leave after stage 3 once medical checks are completed. The loss of the Welshman – even as a GC rider - will have a huge effect on how the race plays over the next few weeks. Climbers will no longer have to be as aggressive in order to distance the time trial specialist and Ineos Grenadiers will no longer be required to work on the front. The race has effectively been blown wide open.

How it unfolded

The most significant action in the early hours of the race was Thomas’ fall. He came down in the neutralized zone with his team informing Cyclingnews at the time that the crash could have been caused by a dropped bidon but the Welshman was quickly back on his bike and racing in the early stages of the race.

Josip Rumac (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Francesco Romano (Bardiani-CSF), Matt Holmes (Lotto Soudal), Giovanni Visconti (Vini Zabu-KTM), Victor Campenaerts (NTT Pro Cycling), Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates), Lawson Craddock, and Jonathan Caicedo (EF Pro Cycling) formed the early break and with Etna in the distance the focal point of the stage would always be the deciding factor.

It was Mitchelton-Scott who set the early tempo in the stage, themselves the memorable 1-2 winners the last time the Giro raced up the volcano in 2018 and with 50km to go the leaders had 5:10 over the peloton. Roughly 15km later a stray dog decided that the race needed some excitement and meandered into the front of the bunch. Luckily there were no fallers and the cavalier canine came through unscathed but a few kilometres later Nibali sent his men to the front and the race began in earnest.

Almost immediately, Thomas, his left side cut to shreds from the earlier fall, began to slip back. Ganna and Rohan Dennis attempted to nurse him back to the peloton but it was quickly apparent that the former Tour winner couldn’t pedal at full force.

With 16km to go, and on the lower slopes of the climb the leaders had 2:30 over the peloton but Caicedo and Visconti – who were briefly joined by Bjerg – were a cut above the rest and with 14km to go they stretched clear of the remnants of the break.

Bora-hansgrohe took over from Trek-Segafredo at the front of the reduced bunch and it was the German team’s effort that wrecked Yates’ chance. He was already towards the back of the peloton with 10km to go and the 28-year-old was forced to sit up and ride at his own pace as riders quickly began to attack from the main field. One-by-one and the riders from the early break were caught before only Visconti and Caicedo remained out front and as the rain began to fall it looked as though the pair would decide the day’s honours.

Back in the main field, Fuglsang attacked with 5km remaining, just as up front Caicedo distanced Visconti. The Dane was quickly caught before Kelderman threw in an equally powerful attack 1,500m later. This move stuck and even though Trek-Segafredo, and then Nibali himself, mounted a chase the Sunweb rider remained clear.

Steven Kruijswijk was dropped twice before the finish but managed to limit his loses with the entire race turned on its head in the space of just one climb.