The beginning of the end. One of three mountain stages with summit finishes to end this Giro.
The Route
Is standard fare until the final climb – 183 kilometres of flat roads that move from the outskirts of Milan to the southern Cuneo area, with the one lump being a short-categorised climb in Novello, although that comes a long way out from the finale.
Prato Nevoso
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This is a ski and holiday resort in northern Italy which hosts the finish today, coming in at 13.5km and averaging 6.9%. It has a history of sorts too, even if brief – it was used as the finish for stage 15 of the Tour de France, when Simon Gerrans went away with Egoi Martinez, Danny Pate and, Jose Luis Arrieta and then decisively out-sprinted the first two in the final 200 meters.
Behind on that day the race lead did change hands – Andy Schleck took yellow – and there were gaps, albeit with a much harder stage beforehand.
The Tactics
Breakaway: This is perhaps a suitable stage for a break, with flat roads right until the bottom of the climb. Whilst it is not a test to be sniffed at, this stage is the easiest one left until Rome, a stage booked in for the sprinters and big ring riders can fancy their chances of pulling a gap.
Magalia Rosa Contenders: The final climb, if raced hard enough, can do damage. When the Tour visited here in 2008 CSC drove the pace to try and isolate Cadel Evans, in the lead at the time – the Australian was then dropped by Bernhard Kohl, Carlos Sastre and Alejandro Valverde towards the end of the day and did end up losing the jersey.
The State of Play
Tom Dumoulin put 1:15 into Simon Yates, leaving the Mitchelton-Scott man in the Magalia Rosa and with three stages left to go he has a 56-second advantage. He and his team must be delighted with that and he now needs to mark one rider and one rider only until Rome. There’s an interesting fight for the podium with Domenico Pozzovivo holding a 39-second advantage over Sky’s Chris Froome, and Froome was not downbeat when talking to RAI after a strong time trial, telling the Italian State Broadcaster “I'm feeling better and better. The Giro is not over yet."
It looks over for everyone outside of him as Thibaut Pinot had a shocking day, finishing 66th on the stage, some 3:20 down on Dennis, and dropping to fifth place overall, 4:19 behind Yates. He has vowed to go onto the attack in the final week but has a literal mountain to climb.
Dennis himself jumped five places and now sits in sixth, 5:07 back, although he will surely struggle to hold the wheels in the mountains. A top 10 however, looks a possibility.
Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) slipped in the overall (5:37 down on Yates), but he extended his lead in the white jersey competition over Movistar's Richard Carapaz (now ninth at 6:07) and they will battle for white.
Break contenders
They have not had much luck so far during this Giro but plenty have tried. Fabio Aru was hoping for much more than breakaways when he started the Giro but after returning back to form the UAE-Emirates leader is no threat on the overall and would surely eat a climb like this up. Diego Ulissi and Valerio Conti, given an earful and a time deduction for drafting during the time trial, are also contenders they can send up the roads for the three days.
Indeed, Androni made a number of attempts with Rodolfo Torres and both he and Fausto Masanada would fancy their chances from a break. BMC’s Alessandro De Marchi was in the break at the time of writing yesterday, but this climb suits him if he goes again and the same comments apply to AG2R’s Alexandre Geniez, one of many who tried to get into breaks at some time during the day.
Gulio Ciccione has managed to make plenty of decent breaks on the flat and if he managed to get into an escape then he’d probably be favourite from a small group.
