The Stage - A second chance for the sprinters, who have done well to make it here after a tough weekend, although they will have to make it through an undulating first half of the stage. There’s a flat circuit as a reward and 40 kilometres of flat road to the finish, however.
The Route - Is entirely coastal, starting in Numana and then going immediately uphill to climb through to the Poggio di Massgiano. This is the first of four climbs before the first official categorised climb of the day, peaking at Monte Baldino, Tavnelle, Pinocchio, and Sappanico, before the first categorised climb of the day that heads up to Offgana.
Rolling roads take the peloton through to Santa Maria Nuova, and the drop into Jesi afterwards. There are more undulating, although not especially steep, roads to San Marcello, and then a razor-sharp climb to Ostra, the second categorised one of the day.
There’s a lumpy double header of climbs towards Croce, and then the drop to Ponte Rio, where there are some flat kilometres too before the last lumps of the day to Cerasa.
The Finish - The circuit in Fano is wide and open even if the road surface isn’t as good as it was in Follocino. There are three pressure points in the last 3 kilometres; The Rotaria Autostrada, taken on the left-hand side, the turn into the Via Roma, the first coming with 1.5 kilometres to go and then the hard right at Via Roma at 350 metres.
The Weather - Windy. The stage is close enough to the coast for things to get interesting, especially given the terrain all day.
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The Winner - This ought to go to a sprint despite undulating territory with tomorrow’s time trial.
The Contenders - Marcel Kittel and Katusha finally hit it off when he took his first win of the season on the run into Follonica, and he looked very good when beating Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and doing so fair and square with a long sprint. Whether it goes as well today remains to be seen – they have had teething problems all year – but he’s favourite on the basis of raw speed.
That sprint was chaotic thanks to the crash that took place 7 kilometres out and whilst one cannot deny the risk of a crash in a sprint, it would be a surprise not to see Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step) get more involved today than he did on Tuesday where he could never land a blow in seventh and it should be remembered he won four stages of the Giro last year.
The crash-marred finale meant we got some new names in the shakeup that included Patrick Bevin (BMC) and Jakub Mareczko (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia) but look out for a better run from Danny van Poppel (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott).
