The weather-shortened stage 16 started in Sacile and finished in Cortina d’Ampezzo. Even after knocking off nearly 60km from the route due to snow and freezing weather on two of the day’s major climbs, the Giro d’Italia’s Queen Stage was still going to be incredibly tough. Stage 16’s 153km parcours started and ended with difficult climbs, the first category La Crosetta started the day, and the Passo Giau brought it to an end, riders cresting this ascent 20km from the finish line in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The peloton would have to squeeze the day’s excitement into the shorter distance and, as expected, multiple attempts to break away came from the start. A large group of twenty-four riders headed off up the road, but with the escapees continuing to attack each other, this large leading group split apart on the descent of the La Crosetta climb leaving just 6 riders in front.
The chase group was undeterred by the rain that had started falling on the course. The lead group maintained a lead of more than five minutes over the peloton. They were eager to make the catch, passing the BORA-hansgrohe duo’s group with 50km to go, before setting their sights on the leaders.
The difficulty of the Passo Giau was brutal, with its slopes of nearly 10% slowing the break while the peloton used their strength in numbers to reduce the gap, the Maglia Rosa of Bernal attacking shortly after the escape was caught. The day’s weather was miserable, soaking riders and making the descent to Cortina d’Ampezzo difficult.
Every day in the Giro, Egan Bernal seems to have different adversaries. At Montalcino it was Emanuel Buchmann, at Campo Felice it was Aleksandr Vlasov, on the Zoncolan it was Simon Yates, today it was Damiano Caruso and Romain Bardet. Every time, the answer is that same. “I wanted to show I’m still in the game,” he said after the stage.
Stage 16 Results
1 Egan Bernal Gomez (Col) Ineos Grenadiers 4:22:41
2 Romain Bardet (Fra) Team DSM 0:00:27
3 Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain Victorious
4 Giulio Ciccone (Ita) Trek-Segafredo 0:01:18
5 Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Education-Nippo 0:01:19
6 João Almeida (Por) Deceuninck-QuickStep 0:01:21
7 Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana-Premier Tech 0:02:11
GC
1 Egan Bernal Gomez (Col) Ineos Grenadiers 66:36:04
2 Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain Victorious 0:02:24
3 Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Education-Nippo 0:03:40
4 Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana-Premier Tech 0:04:18
5 Simon Yates (GBr) Team BikeExchange 0:04:20
6 Giulio Ciccone (Ita) Trek-Segafredo 0:04:31
7 Romain Bardet (Fra) Team DSM 0:05:02
