Giro d'Italia 2016: Stage 19

 Hello and welcome to live coverage from stage 19 of the 2016 Giro d'Italia.

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Welcome to our live coverage from stage 19 of the Giro d'Italia. We're back in the mountains and heading into the Alps for the first of our two days of climbing before the finish in Turin. Today starts the final set of chances for the GC riders to improve their places in the overall standings. 

Here's how the battle for the pink jersey sits ahead of today's stage. 

1 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 73:50:37
2 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge 0:03:00
3 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:23
4 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:04:43
5 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Team Katusha 0:04:50
6 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff Team 0:05:34
7 Bob Jungels (Lux) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:07:57
8 Andrey Amador Bikkazakova (CRc) Movistar Team 0:08:53
9 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:10:05
10 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Dimension Data 0:11:16

Kruijswijk has looked unbreakable in the last week, and throughout the race in truth, climbing and time trial superbly and not flinching when Valverde, Chaves and Nibali have attacked him. He's looked equal to, if not better than anything that's been thrown at him. 

We're about 20 minutes from the start of the stage, the riders already starting to gather on the startline. Kruijswijk in pink looks as relaxed as ever. Today's a huge day for him in term of his career. In some ways the pressure is on his rivals, they're the ones that need to attack and roll the dice.

In the KOM competition Cunego has a healthy lead. 

1 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Nippo - Vini Fantini 134 pts
2 Stefan Denifl (Aut) IAM Cycling 72
3 Darwin Atapuma (Col) BMC Racing Team 69
4 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 61
5 David Lopez Garcia (Spa) Team Sky 54
6 Mikel Nieve (Spa) Team Sky 50
7 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 42
8 Alexander Foliforov (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo 41
9 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Dimension Data 36
10 Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Etixx - Quick-Step 31
11 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 27
 

The peloton have rolled out from the start to begin the 162km to Risoul. We've been there before, in the Tour of de France of course in 2014, when Rafa Majka won the stage. Steven Kruijswijk was in the break that day as a matter of fact but was unable to contest for the stage win. 

@Cyclingnewsfeed Fri, 27th May 2016 10:40:11

It's a fairly flat start to the stage and we don't really start to climb until the first major ascent of the stage. 

The 2,744m Agnello is a towering behemoth of a mountain road and the highest in this year’s race, its Cima Coppi. The long descent into France might deter would-be attackers on the Agnello’s airless upper reaches but the 2014 Tour stage to Risoul, won by Rafal Majka with Vincenzo Nibali in the yellow jersey.

We can expect another break to form early on today, with riders willing and certainly needing to make it into the moves in order to come away with something from there Giro. As ever ever there a number of teams who haven't won a stage, or really featured on the podium.

We're through the neutralised zone already but we're still awaiting the attacks. It will be interesting to see if Cunego looks to make it into the break in order to try and soak up more KOM points. His decision may depend on if any of rivals decide to go up the road. The Italian would obviously like to win a stage but perhaps he's realised that he doesn't quite have the legs and that the KOM is the best priority. Being first over the first climb of the day would be a special moment for him though.

LottoNL are patrolling near the front of the peloton at the moment, just keeping tabs on riders and who might try and make a move. None of the GC guys will but some of their teammates might, with Astana and Movistar set to try and isolate the maglia rosa before the final climb.

A rather interesting dynamic in the teams classification though. Cannondale moved up to second yesterday, cutting the gap to Astana  - who are still top - from 24 to 12 minutes. The American team have some history in winning team prizes in Grand Tours, so do Astana, but this could be an key plot it today's action.
 

Astana will surely give it one last roll of the dice with Nibali today and will therefore spend men on the climb. That means if Cannondale sit tight and ride intelligently then they can move up and cut the twelve minute gap. 

And Astana have already gone on the attack, sending Kangert up the road but he and another rider have been brought back.

The pace is certainly high though and riders are already being distanced. This is going to be utter carnage if they keep this up.

Lars Bak (Lotto Soudal) is the latest to try and break free though and he's joined by several others. The big Dane is the perfect rider to follow when it comes to forming an early break, such huge horsepower.

It doesn't work out for Lars Bak, and the peloton are back to together, having already covered 16km of today's stage. Just under 150km to go.

Another 13 riders have gone clear, just inside 20km of the stage. They only have a handful of seconds though, with the peloton reluctant to let anything go clear in these early stages. 

The road is about to gently descend but a shallow climb in the next few kilometres. It could be there that an attack is formed and a break push clear of the peloton. The attacks keep coming but each one is quickly caught in turn.

@Cyclingnewsfeed Fri, 27th May 2016 11:12:18

13 riders attack... 13 riders are caught. The peloton all as one after 28km of racing. They can't keep this up all the way until the first climb, surely?

127km remaining from 162km

We've covered 35km of the race already. No breaks, Lotto and a few other teams on the front, and we're hurtling along towards the first climb of the day - the highest point in the Giro to be precise. 

The wall-banked climb of Agnello is fast approaching as we cover 40km of the stage in well under and hour. There's still no let up in the attacks but the peloton want to keep things together. The entire race is going to split to pieces on the climb, that's for sure.

A reminder of where things stand coming into the race:

 

1 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 68:11:39
2 Jhoan Esteban Chaves Rubio (Col) Orica-GreenEdge 0:03:00
3 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:23
4 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:04:43
5 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Team Katusha 0:04:50
6 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff Team 0:05:34
7 Bob Jungels (Lux) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:07:57
8 Andrey Amador Bikkazakova (CRc) Movistar Team 0:08:53
9 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:10:05
10 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Dimension Data 0:11:03

I'd like to tell you more about the race and what's going on but at the moment we've simply had the same situation for the last hour - rider after rider, break after break, Belkov the latest, trying to go clear before it's all brought back by the peloton.

Could this be a move that sticks? Verona and Denilf skipping clear with around 50km of the stage covered already. One would expect more riders to try and bridge up and create a larger move.

@Cyclingnewsfeed Fri, 27th May 2016 11:40:01