Giro d'Italia: Nans Peters wins stage 17

Nans Peters (AG2R La Mondiale) took his first professional win with victory during stage 17 of the Giro d'Italia in Anterselva. The Frenchman attacked from the day's break with some 16 kilometres remaining and finished more than a minute behind the second-placed Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott).

Benefiting from a lack of cohesion in the group behind, Peters was quickly able to build a substantial lead. With three kilometres to go, he had a minute on the chasing Chaves and he managed to expand that to 1:34 by the finish line.

Davide Formolo (Bora-Hansgrohe) won the sprint from a three-man group to take third close to two minutes further back, taking a few bonus seconds for his efforts. He gained over two minutes on most of the other general classification contenders and moved himself into the top 10 overall.

"It's huge. It's my first professional victory, and to do it at a Grand Tour is magic," Peters said of his win. "On the first climb eight of us went away, with guys like De Gendt and Bakelants, and then more came across including Jungels and Formolo, so only big names. I tried not to wear myself out. I knew I needed to save some freshness for the finale, to respond to the attacks from those guys with the big palmares. So I didn't do any more work than the others. I wanted to focus on the finale, and didn't want to go after people on the first climbs, so when the attacks came I was happy to follow. Then I put in one big attack and behind they looked at each other a little. I managed my effort well and that was it.

"With 1.5km to go, I said to myself I could do it. My director was shouting that there was no one behind and I knew that in the final kilometre it flattened out and then was technical so it would be hard for anyone to come back there. So I felt confident from 1500 metres."

It proved to be a day of two stages, with the bulk of the general classification riders duking it out a few minutes behind the breakaway. Movistar continued to take the race from the front and Mikel Landa attacked with three kilometres to go, leaving the race leader Richard Carapaz with the other favourites, showing that they did not plan on imposing team orders on their two leaders just yet. Carapaz was soon on the move too, following an attack from Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana).

So aggressive on Tuesday's stage over the Mortirolo, Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) was unable to respond to the attack from Lopez and Carapaz, and had to rely on Domenico Pozzovivo to try and close the gap. A lone Roglic was happy to benefit from the efforts of his rivals with none of his team there to help him.

In the end, Landa was able to take 12 seconds on his Carapaz and Lopez and 19 on Roglic and Nibali, moving him to within a minute of the podium. Meanwhile, Carapaz now has a 1:54 gap over Nibali in the standings. It proved to be another bad day for Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), who lost 20 seconds to the Nibali group, though he maintained his eighth place in the overall standings.

How it happened

After the previous day's trip to the Mortirolo, there were some tired legs in the peloton as they rolled out of Commezzadura. While the brutality had been turned down a notch, it would still be a tough day out with an early unclassified climb followed by three classified ascents, including the third category summit finish at Anterselva.

With some more big mountain stages to come, there was every chance that the peloton would allow the breakaway to go clear and there was a lot of interest in making it into the day's move. The break would go in a series of moves with a group of 11 initiating it after almost 40 kilometres of racing, before a group of chasers joined them.

The first 11 were: Andrea Vendrame and Fausto Masnada (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Nans Peters (AG2R La Mondiale), Amaro Antunes and Victor De La Parte (CCC Team), Tanel Kangert (EF Education First), Krists Neilands (Israel Cycling Academy), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott), Nicola Conci (Trek-Segafredo), Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma).

Following a furious chase, Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Davide Formolo (Bora-Hansgrohe), Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo), Chris Hamilton and Jan Bakelants (Sunweb), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF) and former race leader Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates) made it across to increase the size of the leading group to 18 with 125 kilometres of the 181-kilometre stage remaining.

At 11:51, Formolo would be a worry for several teams in the bunch behind, but with Movistar controlling the pace the gap was allowed to grow gradually up to just over six minutes with 90 kilometres remaining.

As the stage approached the first of the intermediate sprints, Bakelants decided to strike out early. By the time he got to the first classified climb of the day, just a couple of kilometres later, he had a 30-second lead over the chasers while the gap to the peloton was now some seven minutes. Worried by the gap with Formolo still up the road a number of other teams began to move up the peloton to help Movistar, who had been setting the pace for most of the day. Ineos appeared to be the most concerned for their general classification rider Pavel Sivakov, who started the day just four minutes ahead of the Italian in the overall standings.

Initially, Ineos' efforts did little to change the deficit but they would eventually start to bring the gap back, with the help of Movistar and Bahrain-Merida. As they approached the second climb of the Terento, they had brought it down to six minutes. Meanwhile, Bakelants now had a minute over his former breakaway companions. But the chasers weren't going to let him go that easily and the attacks began to fly off the front of the second group on the road.

The attacks split up the large breakaway group and they quickly began closing down Bakelants, who had been on the attack alone for close to 30 kilometres. With 45 kilometres remaining, Bakelants was caught by a small chase group that caught by a diminished leading group, but it would grow back to the full complement of 18 with 30 kilometres remaining. Attacks continued to come from the breakaway, but nothing stuck until Peters decided to have a go with 16 kilometres to go. A slow reaction from the chasers gave the Frenchman a 30-second advantage in quick order.

Peters gap would only grow as the chasing group failed to put in a coherent effort behind. A number of riders, including Chaves, jumped clear as they tried to track down Peters, but it proved to be too little too late and he could not stop the Frenchman from taking the biggest result of his career so far.

Back in the group of favourites, the action lit up as Landa attacked under the three kilometres to go banner. Initially, there was no reaction and Landa was able to slip up the road with relative ease. Lopez was the next to go, taking Carapaz with him as Pozzovivo tried to minimise the loses for his leader Nibali. After a big effort the previous day, it was perhaps an off-day for the Italian and he'll be hoping to recover for the tougher days at the end of this week.

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