Giro d'Italia: Alberto Bettiol wins stage 18

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Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-Nippo) provided a masterclass on how to win from the breakaway with a solo victory on stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia into Stradella.

The Italian attacked several times, most importantly on the final climb of the day to distance, first, Nicolas Roche (Team DSM) and then Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep) to win his maiden race on home soil and take his team’s first stage of this year’s race.

Roche would go on to finish third on the stage after Simone Consonni (Cofidis) overtook him just ahead of the line.

The stage came down to a battle between 23 riders from the break with a series of four climbs in the final 40km providing the terrain after the peloton endured the longest stage of this year’s race. 

The maglia rosa group allowed the break to establish a 15-minute lead with Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) enjoying a relatively stress free day and maintaining his lead over Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious).

Bettiol was part of an initial six-rider move that went clear of the break on the first of the four final climbs but he was caught out when that attack was caught and Cavagna made a move with just over 26km to go. 

The Frenchman’s acceleration was so strong that Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Fenix) was unable to respond, despite being on the Deceuninck rider’s wheel and on the second climb Cavagna pushed his advantage to over 30 seconds as he took a series of risks through virtually every corner. 

It looked as though Deceuninck would rescue their Giro after losing Remco Evenepoel to a crash on stage 17 but Bettiol and Roche had other ideas. The pair jumped after Cavagna, first with 25km to go but after that counter-attack was nullified they tried again.

Bettiol went first with 14.8km to go on the penultimate ascent with Roche making contact on the descent. By that point, Cavagna had seen his lead yo-yo between 30 and 15 seconds with Bettiol the more powerful climber but the Frenchman using his time trial skills to draw out vital seconds on the flat sections between the two last climbs.

At the foot of the final climb, Cavagna held a slender 15 seconds and it briefly looked like he would have enough but when Bettiol dropped Roche with 7.8km to go the catch looked on.

With around 500m of climbing remaining, Bettiol dropped down the gears, rose from the saddle and effortlessly ground his way up to Cavagna’s wheel with 6.9km go before dropping him 300m later.

From there it became a battle of wills. Bettiol, who hadn’t taken a WorldTour win since the Tour of Flanders in 2019, still had to make it down the final descent but with his lead growing and the chase fragmenting the 27-year-old ended the day with plenty of time to celebrate his well-deserved stage win.

How it unfolded

This was the last chance for the majority of the peloton to win a stage in this year’s race with only two mountain stages and a final time trial between here and Milan on Sunday. As expected, the fight for the breakaway went from the gun with wave after wave of attacks in the opening kilometres as several teams looked to throw riders up the road.

With such a long stage and so few sprinters left in the race, there was little control from the main field but when the break finally formed it took the likes of Peter Sagan, Daniel Oss and Filippo Ganna to come to the front and verbally ask that hostilities cease as up the road 23 riders began to establish a lead.

Andrea Vendrame (AG2R Citroën), Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Fenix), Simon Pellaud, Andrii Ponomar, Natnael Tesfatsion (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Samuele Battistella, Gorka Izagirre (Astana-Premier Tech), Filippo Zana (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè), Simone Consonni (Cofidis), Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-Nippo), Francesco Gavazzi, Samuele Rivi (EOLO-Kometa), Wesley Kreder (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Patrick Bevin (Israel Start-Up Nation), Stefano Oldani (Lotto Soudal), Dario Cataldo (Movistar), Nikias Arndt, Nico Denz, Nicolas Roche (Team DSM), Jacopo Mosca (Trek-Segafredo), Alessandro Covi, and Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) were present and accounted for as the gap quickly moved above ten minutes.

There was little appetite from within the peloton to race from that point on. With such a long transition stage, and with two daunting days to come in the mountains, the focus was on recovery for as much as possible as the likes of Bernal and his most dangerous rival, Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) hovered near the front but rarely moved into the wind. They would eventually come home over 23 minutes down, while up ahead, a number of teams tried to rescue their Giro outings.

Bettiol had already proved himself one of the best climbing domestiques in the race, having stuck with his struggling leader Hugh Carthy through stage 17 and the Italian was part of the six-man move that formed on the first climb when Zana ended the break’s collaboration and jumped away. There was no way that the first move would succeed – there were too many strong riders left to chase – but Bettiol marked himself as a rider to watch as soon as he latched onto the attack.

Cavagna had not been in the first assault, the Frenchman wisely waiting for the right moment to strike, and his acceleration caught everyone off guard. Not least the race motos that were almost bowled out of the way in surprise – such was the Frenchman’s rapid turn of speed. But despite building up a relatively substantial gap, Cavagna could do little by the time Bettiol expertly and confidently picked his way across with just under seven kilometres remaining. If his win in Flanders was about opportunism as much as it was about timing and strength then this victory was based upon calculation, risk and reward. And in the end victory.