Yates cracked for the first time and it was worrying to hear that he didn’t “have great legs” on that final climb. Tomorrow, he will be on a hugely difficult and mountainous stage, no place for wobbly legs. The ride from Venaria Reale to Bardonecchia takes in climbs in categories 2,3 and 1 while also taking in the hors catégorie climb to Coppe Deele Finestere on the way to Sestriere and then another summit finish at Bardonecchia. Join us tomorrow for that one.
Here’s the report from another momentous day of this Giro. It really has been classic stuff all the way.
Updated
Simon Yates speaks, and to be frank, he looks a little shellshocked.
That’s ok. I didn’t have great legs. I gave it all I could and that’s it. I am still in front and so that’s all good.
Updated
Tom Dumoulin speaks:
I was waiting for the moment. He responded to my first attack. Then I tried to follow Pozzolivo and Froome and he was dropped. Nice! It’s a good day. The coming two days are going to be different. Now I go to take a shower.
Here's the general classification
The grupetto has made its way through the finish, so we have the standings at last.
1. Simon Yates - 75h 06’ 44”
2. Tom Dumoulin - 28”
3. Domenico Pozzovivo - 2’ 43”
4. Chris Froome - 3’ 22”
5. Thibaut Pinot -4’ 24”
Updated
The GC calculators appear to have broken down in the Italian alps but both Tom Dumoulin and Simon Yates have been speaking.
Updated
Still waiting for the GC standings....
Here’s the stage results, which might be forgotten in the light of what happened in the GC race.
Así ha finalizado la etapa de Pratonevoso. Tremenda subida de Rubén Plaza. Y Schachmann sigue creciendo. #Giro #Giro101 pic.twitter.com/9b11s5Xqr8
— Mi Tribuna (@MiTribunaEs) May 24, 2018
That embraced disaster for Yates. His is by no means a lost cause, but with two huge stages of climbs to come, he won’t be allowed to relax. Dumoulin will not be giving up his crown.
Yates has lost 28 seconds on Dumoulin
He cracked on the final climb and suddenly, this Giro is open. The gap is halved to 28 seconds.
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Lopez crosses the line. Dumoulin and Froome cross the line. Counting back to Yates and he looks exhausted. He’s lost at least 20 seconds.
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Yates is dropping off the wheel of his own group now!
Updated
Yates in trouble for the first time in the tour and needs to make a bridge to that group of Dumoulin and Froome.
Froome goes off the front. Big move here and he’s opened up space. Dumoulin has followed on! And Yates has been dropped!
Dumoulin has had a go on the flat. He needed to. Can he take seconds off Yates? No, the English leader gets back on his wheel.
Lopez’s escape is making good. He has 33 seconds on the main group. Good ride from the white jersey contender.
Yates, meanwhile, is sitting pretty. It’s the places below him that will get shaken up.
George Bennett from New Zealand, in tenth, has made a bid for glory off the front of that pink jersey group.
Updated
Thibaut Pinot’s team, Groupama–FDJ, is trying to get him back to that battle between Carapaz and Lopez. Poels dropping back now, perhaps to try and catapult Froome forward.
Wout Poels’ bid to be in the top ten is taking shape. He is ahead of the main group, and wants to climb up from 17th.
Now for the GC contenders. Carapaz and Lopez are attacking each other. Lopez has gone away from his rival for the white jersey.
Schachmann wins the stage
Plaza came second, while Catteneo couldn’t last.
Updated
Schachmann leading it out. Catteneo off him, then Plaza.
Into a hairpin bend they go. None of them can get away.
An uphill sprint will decide this.
Plaza has their wheel. What a survivor to get there. Three in it?
Ok, here’s the last kilometre for the leaders. Schachmann and Catteneo eyeing each other. Who will crack? Hang on, here’s Plaza.
Sky’s Wout Poels has gone off the front of the peloton. That’s thrown the cat among the pigeons in the race for the top ten in GC.
Catteneo has a dig but now Schachmann has the wheel. He decides they will sit alongside off each other.
Yates, by the way, looked comfortable. Meanwhile, Schachmann and Catteneo have pulled away. Just over 2km to go.
Back in the peloton, Yates’ team, Mitchelton-Scott are putting it on. Movistar to the forefront as well, as Astana drop down. That’s a battle for the white jersey: Carapaz v Lopez.
Spoke too soon? Schachman and Catteneo spin off again. Cat and mouse, with Schachman leading the effort. The 24-year-old German looks strong.
Make the leading group into three. Christoph Pfingsten is back on? Four? Ruben Plaza is back in touch. Gutsy.
For the remaining ten of the breakaway 12, it’s been a long way to travel to get dropped.
Schachmann and Cattaneo are fixed into their roles now, with the Italian sat on the back.
The pink jersey group has 10km to go now, but all seems relatively quiet. The fireworks being saved for that final few hundred metres or so.
Plaza has almost made his way back. Heroic stuff from the old man, but Schachmann and Pfingsten both go for it, with Schachmann taking the lead and Catteneo has his wheel. Two in it now? Catteneo seems content to limit his workload and sit back.
Updated
Plaza dropped at the front of the field. There are now three men in it. Schachmann, Pfingsten and Cattaneo are idling a little, and there are 7km to run.
Yates, though, won’t have usual helper Jack Haig with him, the Aussie looking to have dropped off the back.
The main group begins the final climb
Yates, Dumoulin, Pozzovivo, Pinot, Froome all in the group.
Updated
Ruben Plaza, the oldest rider in the race, has gone for it. Should he get this done, he would, at 38, be the oldest ever winner of a Giro stage. He’s reeled back in, though, and perhaps that was his attempt to ride out his challenge.
Kuznetsov goes off the front. Fonzi and Turrin have been dropped.
The leaders starting to splinter. Ballerini’s race looks done as he drops off. Taking those sprint points was his job done for the day. Team-mate Catteneo is still in the hunt. Five or six have each others’ wheels.
There are now 10km to go for the leading group. The peloton is 15’ 30” or so back. Two races in one here.
Here’s a handy profile of that final climb.
Prato Nevoso #Giro101 #Giro pic.twitter.com/SkOet2nwk6
— Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 24, 2018
And Van Poppel has been spat out the back of the group also immediately. 11 riders left in the hunt.
Mitchelton-Scott are controlling the front of the peloton at the moment. Van Poppel has begun that 13km climb and the chasers in the breakaway group have hunted him down.
Van Poppel is in the foothills of that final climb. Meanwhile, through the town of Mondovi, there is a wobble among the peloton when it takes a sharp turn over a bridge. A couple nearly came a cropper; the gap to the leader is up 16’ 22”.
The gap is 17 seconds to Boy van Poppel. He won’t be popular if they haul him back.
Up in the break, Boy van Poppel of Trek has gone for it off the front. A brave stab at glory, and surely one destined to fail. The rest will work to haul him back but that hill is going to hurt.
More on breakaways from Thomas Sargent: “Max Sciandri in the Giro getting away and not winning the stage but coming third for Linda McCartney. It was so rare to have a Brit even in a grand tour that it was exiting to have one in an actual break.”
He doesn’t designate a year, but we are looking at the year 2000, I think. If you are confused, yes, a cycling team did bear the name of the late Mrs Macca Thumbs Aloft and her vegetarian food empire.
The final, fateful climb awaits for those who have been away for over three hours at this point. Elia Viviani, meanwhile, has stopped at the side of the road. Up at the front Davide Ballerini has taken the sprint and will stay ahead in that competition, not to be confused with the points competition that Viviani leads.
Back to favourite breakaways. Here’s Iain Pearson with an example from Le Tour: “1994, stage 15 from Montpellier to Carpentras, and including an ascent and descent of Mont Ventoux. The stage was won by Eros Poli - a classic sprinter, who (I think) also has the honour of having come stone last in the tour. His breakaway was solo and he arrived at the foot of Ventoux with a 20-minute lead over the peleton. Admittedly it is close to a quarter century ago, but my memory is of him reaching the bottom, looking over his shoulder a couple of times and his face betraying his thoughts about what may (or may not) come next. There was a clear screw-it-let’s-do-it moment, as he decides to give it a go. With cyclists like Indurain and Pantani chasing him down, he held on to the lead up and over one of the toughest climbs in cycling. A complete hero.”
We are under 30km now. And the leading group is under 15km from the beginning of that climb.
Some word on that final climb to a hilltop finish. It’s 14km long, with a 7% gradient, and the last 6km features 13 turns, including some really nasty hairpin bends on the way to a ski station. It’s in that section that the hammer goes down.
Bit of housekeeping going on between the main teams at the moment, and the escape has reached 14’ 45”. Some dark clouds gathering, too.
Under 40km to go now, and after a sharp dip, the beginning of the gradual climb that builds up to the final climb will shortly be upon us. The break is 14’ 17” clear, the biggest the advantage has been so far. And in the race overall.
That big, bulky main group is descending fast and shaving a few seconds off the leaders, but only 20 seconds or so. The weather has stayed off for now, so it’s relatively plain-sailing and the rain forecast at the finish is yet to fall. This year’s Giro, beyond Chris Froome’s troubles, has been quite short of crashes. Thinking back to the Tour de France of the last few years, it seems to be pile-up after pile-up, with Richie Porte’s last year being the most spectacular.
Do we dare watch it again? Go on then. Amazing stuff.
By the way, the winner of that small climb was Fonzi. Joanie and Chachi will be pleased.
Here’s a stat to conjure with. Both times the Giro has finished in Prato Nevoso the stage winner won also the whole race - that’s Pavel Tonkov in 1996 and Stefano Garzelli in 2000. Can this happen? Only if the break even further out and then the winner then does the same in the next two days.
The descent has begun for the escapees, which is far steeper than the climb. Meanwhile, the main group makes its way up.
This is not the toughest climb in the world, and they are passing some vineyards on the way into Novello. Nobody really getting distanced.
For the leaders, the town of Novello and that Cat 4 climb beckons. That could break up the breakaway, so to speak.
Anyway, Maximilian Schachmann is the highest ranked in the GC, at 27th place at 38’ 06” back. Meanwhile, Giuseppe Fonzi is riding himself out of being last in the race.
The advert for that caffeine shampoo that sponsors one the Giro teams is one of TV’s best at the moment, not least because the hard-riffing backing track briefly threatens to turn into Alice Cooper’s Poison
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Freddie Collier emails in: “Are any of the guys in the breakaway a threat to Yates?”
The gap is over 14 minutes, which means there’s been a white flag waved by the peloton on the stage win. None of the GC contender teams have a man in there.
Reminder: the 12-men good and true are: Michael Morkov and Max Schachmann (both Quickstep), Davide Ballerini and Matteo Catteneo (Androni), Christoph Pfingsten (Bora), Ruben Plaza (Israel Cycling Academy), Vyacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha), Jos van Emden (LottoNL Jumbo), Boy van Poppel (Trek), Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), Giuseppe Fonzi and Alex Turrin (Wilier).
Currently trying to work out who is top in GC of that group.
Updated
Back in the peloton, some leading names have been dropping back to chat to their team cars, and attend to spending a penny before the race hits the category 4 climb 56km out. Until then, freewheeling along seems to be the order of the day.
The last time the Giro finished on Prato Nevoso was in 2000, when overall winner Stefano Garzelli secured his pink jersey with a win in the 18th stage. Garzelli had begun the race as a domestique for Marco Pantani, but the late, great legend ended up helping his former bag man to win. Sadly, though not as tragically as Pantani, and like so many riders of his era, Garzelli’s career is shrouded in a drugs controversy. Having dominated the first week of the 2002 Giro, he was banned when a masking agent showed up in his urine.
Updated
Just over 80km to go now.
The gap out to 13’ 33”. Now looks very likely that we are in for two races on that final climb.
Dan Jenkins emails in. “Now he has the lead it’s really in Yates’ interest for the break to win every stage as it removes one means for GC contenders to take time off him (bonus seconds). Not that it should matter given he’s faster than them all in the sprint anyway.”
Good point, well made, Dan. And it looks like the break will be staying away for today.
Twenty seconds have been shaved off. Which is neither here nor there but at least it has stopped increasing. Both the leading group and the group of favourites are taking it quietly, and there’s plenty of gorgeous scenery to take in.
Amazing #Giro101 | Magnifico #Giro101 #Giro pic.twitter.com/YYQzP0pcD0
— Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 24, 2018
That gap of 13’ 00” is the largest of the entire Giro so far.
Interesting that Mitchelton-Scott, Yates’ team admit they are happy for the break to win the stage. Winning the stage lands vital bonus points. Looks like Friday and Saturday are the stages being leant on.
#Giro101: The gap is out to 13minutes with just over 115km left to race. We're happy to let this group contest for victory. @SamBewley is on the front of the bunch for us.
— Mitchelton-SCOTT (@MitcheltonSCOTT) May 24, 2018
📷 @kristoframon pic.twitter.com/vNg7hqlvYE
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The breakaway gap is over 13 minutes now. The countryside looks beautiful as they rattle along flat ground, though there are a couple of ramps to come.
David Alderton emails in on the subject of great breakaways: “David Millar in 2012 up Ventoux for one that won brilliantly. Jack Bauer in 2014 for one that heartbreakingly didn’t.”
Seem to recall David Millar going for it in Barcelona in the Tour one year. In fact, here it is from 2009. That final climb up to Montjuic finished him off.
Simon Yates’ Mitchelton-Scott team are leading the peloton, covering up their main man and look quite relaxed. All in control for now.
The weather forecast at that hilltop finish is for heavy rain. Just as hit the sprint yesterday. The weather 120km out or so is fantastic.
Great breakaways of our time? Any suggestions? Email or tweet if you have any suggestions.
In the early knockings, we have a breakaway. It’s almost 12’ 30” clear. There are twelve men in there. None are GC contenders of note in there. They are Quick-Step’s Michael Morkov and Max Schachmann, Davide Ballerini and Matteo Catteneo (Androni), Christoph Pfingsten (Bora), Ruben Plaza (Israel Cycling Academy), Vyacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha), Jos van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo), Boy van Poppel (Trek), Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), Giuseppe Fonzi and Alex Turrin (Wilier).
That’s a big enough to keep away, though that seems unlikely. Can’t see this being like Futuroscope in the 1990 Tour.
Yesterday was a day for the sprinters, here’s our report.
Preamble
This has been trailed as a return to the mountains, but that’s actually only true of the final few kilometres of today’s 196 clicks of riding. Before that, aside from a category four 140km in, it’s pretty much on the flat, give or take the odd incline.
The final climb up Prato Nevoso is 1607m high, and pretty steep, if not in the Zoncolan/Angliru category of monster climbs. Simon Yates, so strong in the mountain stages, can take more seconds out of Tom Dumoulin if he would like to try, while the Nevoso looks like the type of late ramp that Chris Froome has stormed on repeated occasions when winning his quartet of Tour de France titles.
In fact, the last time a Grand Tour came up this way was the 2008 Tour, when after beginning the day in Embrun in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Aussie Simon Gerrans won the stage. Here’s The Guardian report from back then.
Today, there may be a few fancying a lone breakaway, but with both Dumoulin’s Sunweb and Yates’ Mitchelton-Scott almost certainly trying to control things until as late as possible, that seems unlikely. The Sky Train, in which Wout Poels is looking in fine form, one of a number of Sky riders who rode well in the time trial on Tuesday, may be a factor, though whether Froome is in the right order to benefit is a serious issue. The plan was to ride himself into form during the race and launch himself in these last three hilly stages. Falling off in the prologue of the prologue has nixed that. And he has other issues on his mind, of course.
In the post-sprint huddle at Iseo yesterday, he was asked about his salbutamol case and said this: “I want this resolved more than anyone else does, to be honest. I’d love this to be sorted out before the Tour de France, so that question isn’t there anymore.”
You and us both, Froomey, old boy. Anyway, as always, it’s on with the show. Here’s the general classification.
1 Simon Yates (66hrs 39:14)
2 Tom Dumoulin (+0:56)
3 Domenico Pozzovivo (+3:11)
4 Chris Froome (+3:50)
5 Thibaut Pinot (+4:19)
Updated
