Giro d'Italia: Quintana conquers Blockhaus

If the first summit finish of the Giro d'Italia, on Mount Etna on Tuesday, was an uneventful and anticlimactic affair, the second one on Blockhaus on stage 9 was the polar opposite. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) stamped his authority on the race with a commanding victory that put him into the maglia rosa on a day that saw huge time gaps between the overall favourites, some of which were due to a crash caused by a motorbike before the climb had even begun.

Team Sky's race was left in tatters as Geraint Thomas and Mikel Landa both hit the deck, along with Adam Yates (Orica-Scott), when Sunweb's Wilco Kelderman collided with the police moto that was parked at the side of the road.

Quintana’s Movistar team were unaffected and they led onto the brutal 13.5km first-category ascent, setting a fierce pace to tee up the Colombian, who made the first of many attacks with 6.6km to go and was alone with a 24-second lead by the finish line.

Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), who had followed Quintana's opening move with Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), finished in second place with Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) for company. 2016 champion Nibali, who had responded so calmly to Quintana's first few digs, got into difficulty when the Colombian made his race-winning move on the 14 per cent gradients inside the final 5km, and he eventually faded to fifth, losing a minute.

Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), who rode most of the climb with Dumoulin before losing contact in the final 2km, finished fourth at 41 seconds. Behind him riders came in one-by-one on a day when the Giro truly exploded into life.

Quintana inherits the maglia rosa from Bob Jungels, who struggled as soon as the gradients ramped up in the final 10km of the 13.5km final climb. The Quick-Step rider eventually lost 3:30, joining a long list of hopefuls who were dealt severe blows – Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) and Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) both lost over two minutes, while BMC's Tejay van Garderen lost 3:46.

The damage was worse for Thomas, Landa, and Yates, though through no fault of their own. Landa remounted quicker than Thomas, who revealed he had to pop his shoulder back into its socket, but was clearly physically hampered and ended up losing nearly 27 minutes. Thomas fought bravely and had teammates to pace him up the climb, but he lost 5 minutes and with it any realistic shot at the podium. Yates was up and away much quicker than the others but he struggled alone for most of the climb and lost 4:39.

Quintana, who picked up 10 bonus seconds for the stage win, now leads the general classification by 28 seconds over Pinot, with Dumoulin at 30 seconds. Mollema (51 seconds) and Nibali (1:10) follow, with Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R-La Mondiale) the only other rider within two minutes of Quintana.

Blockhaus

The carnage began before the foot of the climb had even been reached. The pace was high on the approach as the GC teams looked to secure a strong position in the peloton, but a police motorbike was parked by the side of the road – not on the grass verge but on the tarmac itself. Wilco Kelderman couldn't avoid shouldering into it and soon more than 10 riders were on the deck, including Thomas and Landa, whose Sky team had set up shop on the left hand side of the road.

Landa was up and away quickly - as was Yates - but it soon became clear he was in a bad way, and the Sky team dropped back to crowd around Thomas, who began a long fight to limit his losses.

Movistar, who had worked on the front of the bunch for the previous 50km, were in no mood to be distracted from their plans and they led onto the climb in numbers, setting a strong pace that saw the peloton quickly thin out. The early slopes of the 13.5km Blockhaus climb were fairly manageable but they ramped to nearly 10 per cent – and then barely let up – with around 10km to go. It was there that the race leader Jungels began to struggle, and he soon lost the wheel.

The selection process was dramatic as suddenly only 11 riders were left out front. Quintana was there with his teammates Winner Anacona and Andrey Amador leading the way, while Kruijswijk, Pinot, Mollema, Pozzovivo, Dumoulin, Formolo, and Zakarin all sat in the wheels. Van Garderen was a victim of the harsher gradients and dropped back to join forces with Jungels, though the gap would only go one way. Zakarin and Formolo were the next riders to lose contact.

With 6.6km to go Quintana said 'muchas gracias' to his teammates and put in the first attack of the climb. Nibali, amazingly with his arms folded over his bars as if he were riding solo on the flat, closed the gap with assuredness, and Pinot was also alive to it. They looked like the strongest three and they rode away.

Pinot put in a small dig himself but it was Quintana who repeatedly accelerated as the trio gained 20 seconds. Nibali, seated all the time, shut the Colombian down each time with apparent ease but, after a brief respite under the 5km to go banner, the gradients were about to hit 14 per cent. And it's there that the elastic snapped as Quintana surged once more.

This time Nibali couldn't claw his way back, and it soon emerged he was struggling himself, at which point Pinot put in an attack of his own and dropped the 2016 champion. Nibali was soon caught by Dumoulin and Mollema, who had emerged as the strongest of the chasers, and it wasn't long before Nibali lost contact with them, too. Dumoulin then rode up to Pinot, making the bridge as Mollema was losing the wheel inside the final 2km.

Up the road Quintana looked fresh as he sprang out of the saddle again under the flamme rouge. He had a lead of 30 seconds and the stage win was pretty much in the bag. He rounded one final tricky corner as the road ducked downhill before sprinting on the rise for the line, fighting for every second, but letting out a huge smile as he crossed the line.

How it unfolded

With a short stage, only 149 kilometres, and a very nasty finish, the day's breakaway would be a futile affair. But almost immediately a group got away nonetheless: Alexey Tstatevich (Gazprom-RusVelo), Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), Omar Fraile (Dimension Data), Jan Tratnik (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Matteo Montaguti (AG2R La Mondiale), Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Matteo Busato (Wilier-Triestina) and Iljo Keisse (Quick-Step Floors) had trouble establishing a gap but soon got away successfully.

Three riders tried to join them: Pierre Rolland (Cannondale), Tomasz Marczynski (Lotto Soudal), and Sacha Modolo (UAE Team Emirates) dangled in between, as the group took off and the peloton turned things down a notch.

The trio was unable to make much headway, and so Cannondale turned on the turbo and started giving chase. The gap to the first group had grown to 4 minutes, and the American team brought it down a minute, as the three in the middle came nearer to the break group.

Finally, the three made contact with the lead group, to the latter's displeasure. Rolland was too good a climber and could easily destroy the chances of the others in the group. However, at 10:33 down, he was too far back to be a worry for the GC candidates. With 89km to go, the gap was 2:51.

Cannondale had done their job and retired from the lead work, with Movistar taking over the work. The long hard chase may have cost Rolland though, as he appeared to struggle at bit at the back of the break group.

The gap was coming steadily down, and was at about 2.30 at the halfway mark, and continued to fall. The two-minute marker came with 68km left. It went back up again, though, with Movistar still at the head of the field.

The cat-and-mouse continued, with the gap growing and shrinking. Fraile took the second intermediate sprint, at the top of a hill in Chieti and the peloton leisurely following at 2:38. From there, though, the speed picked up, the peloton lined out and the gap came down under the two-minute mark. It hit the one minute mark with 34 km left, Movistar still doing the work.

Bahrain Merida and Sky moved up to the front, and the lead group started up the climb with just over 30 seconds. That lead group soon started falling apart, as Marczynski, Tratnik and Rolland were the first to take off, and the rest were caught with about 24 km to go.

The new leading trio held onto a 10 to 13-second gap, but Rolland was soon out of the group as the field approached. Movistar caught them with 22 km left and turned on the speed yet again. Numerous riders started falling off the back but then the motorbike suddenly appeared, sending the Giro into chaos once more. 

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