Giro d'Italia 2023 stage 13 preview - ‘A lot to gain, a lot to lose’ as race enters new phase at Crans-Montana

Update Friday 19th May - Stage 13 of the Giro d'Italia has been dramatically shortened. Follow our live coverage here.

Every year, that old truism is dusted off and rolled out when the Alps finally hove into view. The ‘real’ Giro d’Italia starts here, the sages say, as if the previous two weeks of hardship had been little more than a glorified preamble, a touring opening ceremony.

This year, more than ever, that old cliché is utterly redundant. The Giro has been all too real since the race started in Pescara, not least because real-world problems – namely, constant rain and persistent COVID-19 cases – have repeatedly breached the walls of the rolling citadel.

On the eve of stage 13 to Crans-Montana, Jack Haig conjured up as much diplomacy as he could muster when the idea was put to him. “The real Giro started already,” he smiled in Bra on Thursday morning. “I think it’s maybe just a different phase of the Giro starting…”

His Bahrain Victorious teammate Damiano Caruso had a similar view. In a race as attritional as this one, he wondered if it was almost moot to start singling out potentially decisive days. “Every day, it seems there’s an unexpected twist,” Caruso said. “So, look, there’s no single day where you can say, ‘This is where the Giro will be decided,’ even now that we’re coming into the mountains. Every moment can provide surprises.”

When the Giro broke for its first rest day in Cesena last weekend, after all, the consensus was that there would be little movement in the overall standings until the race’s entry into the Alps on stage 13. The passage into Switzerland seemed the next obvious rendezvous for the GC men given the relatively uninspiring nature of the route for much of week two.

Assumptions, of course, have a very short shelf life in Italy in May. Maglia rosa Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) was forced out when he tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday night, dark horse Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) dropped out of the podium battle when he fell victim to the cold on stage 10, and then Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) crashed out of the race altogether when he crashed and broke his hip on the descent of Colla di Boasi.

Those sorry circumstances have changed the complexion of the Giro entirely since the Cesena time trial, even when the route suggested a détente was likely. Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) inherited the maglia rosa from Evenepoel, and he carries a two-second lead over Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), while João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) lies third at 22 seconds and Caruso has moved up to fifth at 1:28.

Each man has moved up the classification over the past five days simply by staying in the race. Such has been the brutal nature of a Giro that Bora-Hansgrohe directeur sportif Enrico Gasparotto has likened to a “survival game”.

No, the ‘real Giro’ has already been going for two weeks. Friday is simply the biggest test of endurance and resolve yet. No more and no less.

The route

Image 1 of 3

The route of stage 13 has, like the overall standings, been subject to enforced changes over the past week. Last Sunday, RCS Sport confirmed that the Giro would not be able to climb to the top of the Passo Gran San Bernardo due to the risk of avalanches on its upper slopes.

The 2,469-metre ascent was due to be the Cima Coppi, the highest of the Giro, but the abridged version will instead see the peloton climb to 1,878m before being diverted through the tunnel underneath the pass.

On Thursday morning, meanwhile, whispers persisted that the day’s second ascent, the category 1 Croix de Coeur (15.4km at 8.8%), might also fall victim to the miserable conditions, with Swiss television station RTS reporting that local authorities were still concerned about the condition of the road on the descent after clearing winter snow in recent days.

By Thursday evening, however, RCS Sport could confirm that the gruppo would be able to climb the Croix de Coeur and then drop towards Sion ahead of the final, category 1 haul to the finish at Crans-Montana (13.1km at 7.2%). The ascent’s very name brings an almost Proustian association with a young and carefree Laurent Fignon winning there in yellow on the 1984 Tour de France, a race that seemed to be bleached bright by constant sunshine.

On Friday, by contrast, the Giro faces the likelihood of heavy rain and single-digit temperatures throughout a 199km stage set to play out beneath low clouds and swirling mist. The nigh-on 5,000m of climbing across the stage provides the day’s underlying difficulty, but the ability to withstand the bitter cold on the long descents off the Gran San Bernardo and the Croix de Coeur might be just as decisive. 

“We’ll try to stay as warm as possible,” Thomas warned on Thursday evening. “That’s key tomorrow.”

Thomas versus Roglič

Despite all the tumult around them, the two favourites for this Giro, Thomas and Roglič, have been more or less locked together for almost the entirety of the race. Roglič fared slightly better than Thomas in the Ortona time trial and picked up a bonus second on the road to Melfi, while the Welshman returned the favour by placing second in the Cesena time trial, picking up 16 seconds on his rival in the process.

In between, Thomas was the only rider – together with the unfortunate Geoghegan Hart – who could bridge up to Roglič when he accelerated on the climb of I Cappuccini on stage 8 to Fossombrone. Although that ascent – short and sharp – was a relative sprint compared to the marathon slog to Switzerland on Friday, Jumbo-Visma directeur sportif Marc Reef believes it might have pointed to the general direction of travel all the same.

“It’s difficult to say, but I think we saw already an indication last Saturday,” Reef told Cyclingnews. “Although it was a short and explosive effort, you saw already that three guys were ahead of the rest there.

“On Friday, you can envisage a fight on the final climb between the GC contenders, so we’ll see how it can be with a longer effort. We’ll see how everybody is in the long climbs, and we’ll know more afterwards about how everybody is compared to each other.”

Roglič, like Thomas, was a faller in the same incident as Geoghegan Hart on Wednesday, but his Jumbo-Visma squad were optimistic that he would not be compromised by the cut to his hip in the days ahead. Thomas, meanwhile, was unscathed, but he lost a co-leader in Geoghegan Hart, while Pavel Sivakov – another crash victim – dropped out of the overall picture when he conceded 13 minutes.

Ineos – and Sivakov in particular – did a more than serviceable job of policing the peloton on Thomas’ behalf on Thursday, but Ineos directeur sportif Matteo Tosatto acknowledged that stage 13 presented a very different kind of challenge.

“It was a huge blow to lose Tao, but we’ve got to look ahead,” Tosatto told Cyclingnews. “Our Giro will be different now. We're racing in a more controlled way, but we’ll still be ready to defend the maglia rosa. We’ve had some testing stages so far, but nothing in the high mountains on Friday. Whoever wants to win the Giro will have to start showing themselves here. 

Roglič’s Jumbo-Visma guard entered this Giro under a cloud, their selection revised multiple times by crashes and COVID-19 cases, but they have given the impression of settling into the race in recent days, most notably when men like Sepp Kuss worked to tee up his attack on I Cappuccini.

Ineos remain, on paper, the strongest team on the race, but Friday should reveal if the balance has been tipped since Geoghegan Hart’s abandon. “They still have an incredible team,” Reef said. “But when the situation asks for it, we are also able to take control and do our thing.”

Thomas and Roglič are not the only two contenders, of course, given that Almeida has raced very solidly to this point, while the Bahrain Victorious duo of Caruso and Haig could form a dangerous tandem. If the current rate of attrition persists, meanwhile, riders like Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-Alula) and Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe), robust so far, may sense the chance of a lifetime to compete for a Grand Tour podium.

And yet, at this juncture, Thomas and Roglič, by pedigree and by form, look to be the men who offer the greatest guarantees in a trial of endurance like this one. The ‘real Giro’ has been going on for two weeks already, and they’ve been quietly withstanding its succession of ordeals better than most.

“Roglič is the favourite to win the Giro, I've always said that,” Tosatto said. “Almeida is a threat too. He's been hiding so far, but he's like Geraint: he's very consistent, and he has a strong team. They're our biggest rivals, but I expect surprises too, starting from Friday's stage.”

Perhaps, but in keeping with the nature of this Giro to date, expect survival to remain the byword on the road to Crans-Montana. Despite the conditions and the tight overall standings, it might be a slow-burning stage. In a year like this one, it’s all about staying in the hunt.

“On the first long climb, riders are generally a bit more conservative anyway, and after tomorrow there is still a lot to come,” Reef said. “It’s not only tomorrow that will count, but all of the last week. There’s a lot to gain on Friday, but also still a lot to lose.”