Giro d'Italia: Isaac del Toro rebounds to win stage 17

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) struck back in the battle for the Giro d’Italia maglia rosa and extended his race lead, winning stage 17 to Bormio with a late attack 1.7km from the finish.

The Mexican leapt clear from a select group of GC favourites on the final climb of the day at Le Motte, 9km from the finish of the 155km stage, taking his main GC rival Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) with him.

The pair collected breakaway survivor Romain Bardet (Picnic-PostNL) on the largely downhill run to the line, taking turns to hold off the chasing group behind. It looked as though the stage would culminate in a three-man sprint to the line, but Del Toro had other ideas and put in one last move to go clear on the streets of Bormio.

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Carapaz didn’t have it in him to match the acceleration and shed four seconds – plus six bonus seconds – to the 21-year-old Mexican at the line as Bardet beat him to second place.

Further back, Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) led home the chase group at 15 seconds down, with Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) among those accompanying the Briton.

Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) came home in the next group on the road, 1:10 down, while Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) finished four minutes back. The big GC loser of the day, however, was Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), who lost even more time after dropping on the stage’s big climb, the Passo del Mortirolo.

Del Toro now continues in the race lead with an extended 41-second lead over new second-placed rider Carapaz. The EF rider jumps above Yates, who now lies third at 51 seconds down. Gee, lying in fourth, is the only other rider within two minutes of the lead at 1:57 down.

“I imagined that I could win a stage with the Maglia Rosa,” Del Toro said after the stage.

“The Giro has been very good so far. The fight for the podium is incredible and today I realised that I will never give up. I will always try to win. I have nothing to lose. It wasn’t any easier today than yesterday.

“With the team, we expected some attacks to take place on the Mortirolo. We didn’t want to let all the GC riders go. I went across to them and I took it easy a bit. I caught them in the descent. We had made this plan with the team that I would attack on the last small climb.”

How it unfolded

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Stage 17 of the Giro d’Italia saw the peloton continue with another challenging mountain stage, this time taking in 155km of racing between San Michele all’Adige and Bormio.

Three major climbs lay on the route – the second-category Passo del Tonale (15.2km at 6%), the first-category Passo del Mortirolo (12.6km at 7.6%), and the third-category Le Motte (3.1km at 8%), 9km from the finish.

On a day potentially suited to a big breakaway battle for the stage victory, it was no surprise to see a multitude of attacks fly. Riders including Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike), and Mattia Cattaneo (Soudal-QuickStep) tried moves during the rising opening 20km, but nothing got away before the intermediate sprint at Cles at 23.5km.

There, Pedersen hit the front again to beat Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) to the line and add another 12 points to his mammoth maglia ciclamino total. The attacks continued shortly afterwards, with the road still rising towards the base of the Passo del Tonale.

Pedersen was on the move again, this time accompanied by a host of others as the break finally got away. In total, 39 riders made the move, with Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) easily the best-placed man on GC out front, the American lying 7:43 off the race lead.

Maglia azzurra Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) was unsurprisingly in the group, as were numerous other strong climbers, including Bardet, Steven Kruijswijk (Visma-Lease a Bike), Dani Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), and Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla).

The peloton, aside from Polti-VisitMalta, who had missed the move, was happy with the composition of the group, and let the break ride three minutes up the road on the early slopes of the Tonale.

Up the road, the break quickly blew apart on the climb, with an acceleration by Fortunato putting the weaker climbers out the rear before the midway point. Having split in half on the way up, around 25 men were back at the front at the top of the climb.

Fortunato put in another acceleration across the summit to add 18 points to his KOM total. With 337 points on the board, he enjoyed a massive 212-point lead over Astana teammate Cristian Scaroni, while Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) lay in third with just 54 points.

On the way down, the break’s lead grew out to four minutes, with Visma-Lease a Bike’s climbers Kruijswijk, Bart Lemmen, and Wilco Kelderman leading the way onto the fearsome Mortirolo.

The break, and the chasing peloton, quickly shattered on the way up as the harsh gradients bit. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) were notable names dropping from the peloton during the early slopes of the climb with over 50km left to run.

At the front, Fortunato tried another move midway up the climb, though a counter-attack from Martínez proved stronger. The Colombian flew past and established a 20-second lead before he was joined by Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla) 4km from the top.

More riders, including Fortunato, Cattaneo, Bardet, McNulty, Efonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious), and Florian Stork (Tudor) came across before the summit, with Eulálio – responding to a move by Bardet – leading the race over the top and going solo on the descent.

Back in the peloton, the GC action was kicking off as Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) mounted the first attack from the much-reduced group.

Riders including race leader Isaac del Toro, Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) struggled to hang on, and were put deeper in trouble when Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) launched a move of his own close to the summit.

The Ecuadorian’s attack saw no reaction from behind, though he wouldn’t stay away for long, even as teammate Georg Steinhauser dropped back from the break to help. Carapaz was brought back to the GC group on the way down, the riders lying 2:30 from the front of the race heading into the final 50km.

On the descent, things came back together at the front, with Eulalio caught back by the chasers. Bardet, Fortunato, Cattaneo, Kelderman, and Stork linked up with the Portuguese rider, with Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) also coming across to make it an eight-man group.

Back in the GC group of 20 riders or so, the gap to the break only diminished as UAE and Q36.5 put in work on the front. At the Red Bull Kilometre is Le Prese, 25km from the line, it was down to 1:40.

From there, UAE continued to push on towards Le Motte, shaving second after second from the breakaway’s advantage. On the climb itself, a short but sharp test before a downhill run to Bormio, they brought it under 30 seconds.

Bardet put in one last-ditch attack from the break as the remainder of the move was brought back by the GC men. Behind him, only Cattaneo could hold off the charge behind. He’d soon be caught and passed, too, however, as Del Toro launched towards the top of the climb.

The Mexican, responding to a move from Rubio, shot past the Colombian, taking Carapaz with him as the pair left the rest of the GC hopefuls in their dust, with Bernal and Pidcock having already dropped from the group.

Heading down the descent and into the final 7km, the pair trailed Bardet by 10 seconds, but the gap was only closing as the riders raced towards Bormio. At 5.5km to go, the Frenchman was caught before latching onto the rear.

Back down the road, Yates, Pellizzari, Rubio, Eulalio, Caruso, and Gee chased with a 20-second deficit. They wouldn’t make it back to the leaders before the line, though, and had to fight to the finish to limit their losses.

Del Toro and Carapaz looked set to duke it out for the stage win, but it was the race leader who made the decisive move 1.7km from the line. He put in another attack, this time on a descent, to catch Carapaz out and snatch precious seconds, and a career-first Grand Tour stage victory to boot.

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