Giro d'Italia: Arredondo wins atop Rifugio Panarotta

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Julián Arredondo confirmed his status as the Giro’s mountains king when he took a superb solo victory at the Rifugio Panarotta. Having got into the break that formed on the first climb of the day, the San Pellegrino, the 26-year-old Trek Factory Racing rider also led over the next climb and was not to be denied on the final ascent.

Arredondo had already tried to go clear twice when he jumped away again from the remnants of the breakaway group with 4km remaining. Although chased all the way to the line by fellow Colombian Fabio Duarte, Arredondo had enough of a buffer to celebrate his victory over the closing 100 metres. Sky's Philip Deignan produced another strong ride to finish third behind Duarte.

"I’ve been working really hard for this and I’d like to thank my team and everyone in Colombia," said a beaming Arredondo. "Although the race isn’t over until Sunday, this is a very big step towards the mountains jersey, which was my main goal when I got into the break today."

"I have to give a big thanks to my director and coach Josu [Larrazabal]. I wanted to attack at the bottom of the last climb but he told me from the team car, 'no, no no! take it easy, not yet!' Then with four kilometer to go he said, 'Julian now!' I won this stage to a great degree from his advice."

Just like the escape group ahead of them, the main contenders went all guns blazing up the final climb, where Cadel Evans was the day’s big loser. Dropped five kilometres from the finish, the Australian ceded third place to Europcar’s Pierre Rolland, who was the main animator on the Panarotta.

Rolland’s advantage in third place is a narrow one, though, as Astana’s Fabio Aru gained a handful of seconds with a final surge up to the line and now lies just two seconds behind him in fourth, with Rafal Majka on the same time in fifth.

Race leader Nairo Quintana looked untroubled as he finished just behind Aru. He was delighted to see another Colombian on the podium on the Panarotta. "It’s a Giro made for Colombians," said the Movistar rider. "I am really happy to see that Julián Arredondo won and is also wearing the mountains jersey, which really matters to the Colombians."

He praised the "fantastic work" of his team and described the final climb as "not as tough as we were expecting".

How it unfolded

After some initial skirmishing on the San Pellegrino, a group of 14 riders came together towards the top of the pass. Arredondo was one of the first to get clear with Dario Cataldo (Team Sky), Edoardo Zardini (Bardiani-CSF), Emanuele Sella and Franco Pellizotti (both Androni Giocattoli).

This quintet were soon joined by Deignan, Tim Wellens (Lotto-Belisol), Thomas de Gendt (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) and Ivan Rovny (Tinkoff-Saxo), and then by Martijn Keizer (Belkin) and Fabio Duarte (Colombia). As Arredondo accelerated away with Deignan to battle for top mountains points on the summit of the San Pellegrino, Alberto Losada (Katusha), Ivan Basso (Cannondale) and Matteo Rabottini (Neri Sottoli) also got up to the breakaway group.

While race leader Quintana’s Movistar team set a steady pace on the front of the peloton, the breakaways pushed their advantage out to more than eight minutes going over the second climb of the day, the Passo del Redebus, where Arredondo cemented his position in the blue jersey of best climber with maximum points.

The bearded Thomas de Gendt was the first of the breakaways to attack on the final climb. A number of riders attempted to chase across to the Belgian, as it started to become clear that the maglia rosa group was now too far behind to reel in the break before the finish.

Going under the 10km-to-go banner, De Gendt led Cataldo by 25 seconds, as Arredondo chased hard behind the Italian with Cataldo’s Sky team-mate Deignan on his wheel. When these three came together, they steadily chipped away at de Gendt’s advantage, and this process accelerated when first Duarte and then Pellizotti came up to join them.

Arredondo finally got up to De Gendt’s wheel with 6km remaining and then shot away on his own. But far from signaling the end of hostilities, this attack actually increased them. First Duarte chased up to his compatriot, then Deignan, de Gendt and Pellizotti ground their way back up to them too.

De Gendt made another bid for glory with 5km remaining, only to see Pellizotti close his attack down and then counter with one of his own. But Pellizotti’s stint at the front lasted less than a kilometre. Arredondo and Duarte chased up to him and Arredondo then hared away towards victory.

Further down the pass, Europcar had been tapping out a fast rhythm on the front of the maglia rosa group, their intention to set up Rolland for an assault on third-placed Evans quite evident. This began with a dig from Rolland’s main lieutenant, Romain Sicard, which was quickly followed by an attack from Rolland himself.

Evans was dropped, but only by a few metres. However, when Rolland went hard again, pursued by Quintana and the other GC contenders, Evans’ grip on third place was finally loosened. He ended the day in ninth place overall, his hopes of a podium finish all but ended.

Rolland attacked a third time, and then a fourth, finally going clear on his own. With Rigoberto Urán’s second place under threat from the Frenchman, Omega Pharma’s Wout Poels went to the front of the maglia rosa group and drove hard to close down Rolland’s lead. Once Poels had given his all to achieve this, another string of attacks followed, with Rolland now on the defensive as Aru made a late bid to snatch third place.

Only 23 seconds now separate Rolland in third from Domenico Pozzovivo in sixth, which will ensure the ding-dong fight for the third spot on the podium will continue in tomorrow’s mountain time trial on Monte Grappa. Ahead of this quartet, Colombian duo Quintana and Urán will go head to head, with Urán no doubt hoping to take advantage of his TT talent to close the gap on the race leader.

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