Giro d'Italia: Carapaz wins stage 14

Richard Carapaz (Movistar) produced a virtuoso display to take his second victory of the Giro d’Italia on stage 14, attacking on the mighty Colle San Carlo before soloing down into the valley and up the final haul to Courmayeur. As the other contenders hesitated and looked at each other, the Ecuadorian carved out an advantage that propelled him into the maglia rosa as overall leader of the race.

Carapaz, who won stage 4 in Frascati, had flown under the radar the previous day as his teammate Mikel Landa dominated the headlines, but he followed that strong showing at Lago Serrù with a well-executed performance that confirms his status as a true contender for the title.

He launched his attack three kilometres from the summit of the Colle San Carlo, the fourth of five categorised climbs on a parcours that packed 4,700 metres of climbing into just 131km. By that point, the pink jersey was already slipping off the shoulders of Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates), who eventually finished 7:41 down.

The obvious successor was Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), who followed over the top of the Colle San Carlo 35 seconds behind Carapaz in a group with Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Mikel Landa (Movistar), Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana), and Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe). However, despite holding that gap all the way down the technical 16-kilometre descent, their deficit ballooned when the road tilted uphill again and the cooperation drained from the group.

The day after Nibali and Roglic were involved in a tense war of words, things fell apart to such an extent that Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) came back from being dropped on San Carlo to ride away to second place on the stage. He crossed the line 1:32 down on Carapaz, with Nibali taking third place from the rest of the group at 1:54.

Carapaz had started the day sixth overall, 1:57 down on Roglic, and took the overall lead by virtue of the 10 bonus seconds he picked up for the stage win.

In the overall standings, he now leads Roglic by seven seconds, with Nibali in third at 1:47. The Italian, whose teammate Damiano Caruso did a huge amount of work on the two final climbs, will be frustrated, despite gaining four seconds on Roglic, at another dangerous Movistar rider gaining so much time.

Stage 13 winner Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) plummeted out of the top 10, finishing more than seven minutes down just 24 hours after he’d come roaring back into the equation at Lago Serru. Similarly, Bauke Mollema, who’d jumped to fourth yesterday, dropped back to sixth after being dropped on San Carlo and finishing 4:03 down on Carapaz.

Majka, who was unable to follow the accelerations on San Carlo but repeatedly dragged his way back into contention, finished fourth on the stage and is now fourth overall at 2:10, while Landa, who had to take a back seat with Carapaz up the road, took fifth and moved up to fifth overall at 2:50. Next across the line in that elite group were Lopez, Pavel Sivakov (Ineos) who had also profited from the hesitation among the favourites to get back in, Roglic, and Joe Dombrowski, who crested San Carlo alongside Yates.

Mollema is now sixth, Polanc seventh, Sivakov eighth and still in the white jersey as best young rider, Yates up to ninth at 5:28, and Lopez still 10th at 5:30.

Early fireworks

With four major climbs and an uphill finish packed into the space of 131 kilometres, stage 14 always had the potential to be explosive, and it came to the boil on the very first climb. The second-category ascent to Verrayes – 6.7km at 8 per cent – came after just 7.5km and saw Yates launch a brace of accelerations as the bunch thinned rapidly.

Roglic shut the first one down before going away with Yates and Carapaz on the second occasion. That trio reached a breakaway group that had only just established itself, and they were soon joined by the rest of the main favourites as Nibali jumped across and Sivakov dragged the rest over. That left a group of 27 at the head of the race, with Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Roglic’s domestique Sep Kuss among the notable names dropped.

Ciccone, wearing the blue jersey as leader of the mountains classification, clipped clear at the summit to make sure of the points, before Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida) attacked on the descent and was joined by Pello Bilbao (Astana) and later Hugh Carthy (EF Education First).

They wouldn’t last long, however, as the road had flattened in the valley. Attacks came and went from the group of 27, before Ciccone went clear with Chris Juul-Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott) and the Androni duo of Fausto Masnada and Mattia Cattaneo. Soon after, Andrey Amador (Astana) and Lucas Hamilton (Mitchelton-Scott) bridged across, before Carthy and Ivan Sosa (Ineos) did the same to make it eight out front.

After a brief discussion between Nibali and Landa, that move was allowed to sail away and the group of favourites took the opportunity to take their foot off the gas, allowing the main peloton to come back into the frame. After a brief impulse from FDJ, who though the intermediate sprint might still be in play, things settled down as Polanc’s UAE Team Emirates men did a brief stint on the front of the peloton before Roglic’s Jumbo-Visma – with Kuss back in – took control.

The breakaway took a lead of 2:30 onto the second climb of the day, the first-category ascent to Verrogne – 13.8km at 7.1 per cent. It was there that foundations were laid by some of the overall contenders, as Astana and Bahrain-Merida fired riders up the road in Ion Izaguirre and Caruso. They linked up with the AG2R La Mondiale duo of Tony Gallopin and Hubert Dupont, who had attacked a kilometre or so earlier. The four of them trailed by 1:15 as they crested the climb, with the peloton a further minute behind.

They made up ground on the descent and made the catch on the false flat section ahead of the third climb, the second-category ascent at Truc d’Arbe – 8.2km at 7 per cent. The climb passed by quietly as the now 12-rider breakaway took a lead of 1:25 over the summit, where Ciccone took maximum points for the third time in a row.

San Carlo

After a short section on lightly uphill roads through the valley, it was time for the imposing Colle San Carlo, which, with an average gradient of almost 10 per cent over 10.5km, towered over today’s stage.

Jumbo-Visma led through the valley but it wasn’t long before Nibali’s team piled on the pressure. When they did, Roglic was quickly stripped of teammates, and Polanc soon found himself in trouble. It wasn’t long before Nibali launched his first attack, decimating the bunch. Roglic was straight onto the wheel, along with Carapaz, Landa, and Lopez, but there was a gap to Majka, Sivakov, Mollema, and Yates. Zakarin struggled to even follow that group and slipped further and further back.

While up front Ciccone, Cattaneo and Sosa emerged as the strongest in the break, Formolo dragged Majka and co back into the GC group, though Yates never quite made contact and spent most of the climb riding his own tempo a little further back. Caruso then dropped from the break and moved to the front to set a strong tempo for Nibali. The pace was such that Ciccone, the last remaining breakaway rider, was soon in sight just beyond the half-way mark. Lopez put in an acceleration and then Nibali produced another attack to further shake up the group. As they caught Ciccone, there were nine out front: Caruso, Nibali, Roglic, Lopez, Landa, Carapaz, Majka, Dombrowski, Ciccone.

With three kilometres to go, Carapaz made his move, surging out of the saddle with his hands in the drops. Roglic was first to respond, before Nibali took over, but the Ecuadorian was away. At first, those two, along with Landa and Lopez, were the only ones able to follow, but Majka and then Dombrowski hauled themselves up nearer the summit. Having been held at 15 seconds, Carapaz found more ground in the final kilometre of the climb and crested with 35 seconds in hand.

Nibali launched a stinging acceleration over the top that dropped Dombrowski, but he still had Roglic, Landa, Lopez and Majka for company on the long, hairpinned descent.

The gap to Carapaz fell to as little as 17 seconds at one point, and it looked like it might come back together, but the Movistar man pulled away again on the technical bottom section and took half a minute onto the final climb.

No cooperation in Courmayeur

Carapaz began the final haul to the line – 8km at a 3.2 per cent - in the shadow of Mont Blanc with a lead of 30 seconds over the five chasers, with Yates with Dombrowski at 49 seconds and Sivakov with Caruso at just over a minute.

While the descent had created no problems of cooperation, the draggy road to the line represented terrain where no one wanted to hand a rival a free ride. Consequently, Nibali, Roglic, Lopez, Majka, and Landa all looked at each other instead of committing to a coordinated chase. That allowed Yates, Dombrowski, Sivakov and Caruso back into the frame, but more importantly saw Carapaz disappear up the road.

With 6km to go he had a minute, and that was before they nearly ground to a halt. Yates sensed his opportunity and was quickly and easily away. Dombrowski and Sivakov tried to follow suit but were unable to gain ground as Caruso once again hit the front and set the pace for Nibali.

That limited the damage to a certain extent, but Carapaz gained all the way to the finish. As he gave everything and sprinted right to the line before celebrating, he found himself almost two minutes up. He was ushered to the rollers by a soigneur and quietly clenched his fist when he was informed of the time gaps and it was confirmed he was in pink.

With a time trial to come on the final day, Roglic is still in command as it stands, but there are plenty more mountains to come, and Carapaz and Movistar as a whole are flying.

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