Almeida comes off but holds the squad for 15 seconds; he tenaciously defends the leader’s jersey.
Pointing to the sky for a friend who no longer exists (the d.s. of Ineos Grenadiers Nicolas Portal who died in March) on the climb where Marco Pantani triumphed in 1998. Tao Geoghegan Hart conquered the 185k stage of the Giro d’Italia, from the Rivolto Air Base to Piancavallo. Joao Almeida keeps the pink jersey with 15 “.
In the Friulian mountain stage, after passing Sella Chianzutan, Forcella di Monte Rest and Forcella di Pala Barzana, all of the second category. A challenging descent, then flat to Aviano, where the final ascent of Piancavallo (first category) begins, 15 km on arrival. Very steep first 10 km, around 9%, with peaks of 14%. At km 10.9 the road flattens and goes down slightly, to start again with more moderate slopes (max 8%).
Everyone is looking for an escape, which in this Giro is a good option: in six out of twelve stages (excluding the two time trials) were successful. Eleven men: the Thomas De Gendt, Matthew Holmes (Lotto Soudal), Sergio Samitier, Davide Villella (Movistar), Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers), Manuele Boaro (Astana), Andrea Vendrame (Ag2r La Mondiale), Mark Padun (Bahrain McLaren), Daniel Navarro (Israel Start Up Nation), Luca Chirico (Androni Sidermec) and Giovanni Visconti (Vini Zabù Brado).
They work together and their advantage is close to 7 ‘. Wilco Kelderman’s Sunweb and Domenico Pozzovivo’s NTT Pro Cycling are in the lead. Vincenzo Nibali loses time. After Giulio Ciccone’s abandonment due to acute bronchitis, he has to give up another precious teammate: Gianluca Brambilla surrenders to the pain in his knee, a consequence of a recent fall.
Rohan Dennis launches himself into the attack. But the men in the standings want the stage success and catch up. His adventure ends 9 km from the finish, on the terrible Piancavallo climb. Thanks to Sunweb, the race explodes. First they drop Fuglsang, Majka, Pello Bilbao, McNulty and Domenico Pozzovivo. A few hundred meters later Vincenzo Nibali also drops back. Fewer and fewer riders remain ahead, until Kelderman, Geoghegan Hart and Hindley. Almeida is on the ropes. He tries with all his might to hold on to the head of the race, but his gap increases inexorably. His effort is commendable and kept the pink jersey for just 15 “.
Behind the big spaced out chase are Majka at 1’22”, Nibali and Fuglsang at 1’36 “, Pozzovivo at 1’54”. The climb has delivered its sentence: the lighthouse of the race is now Wilco Kelderman, solid and with the strongest team. But there are still many mountains to face and in this Giro every prediction seems made to be proven wrong.
Almeida: “I could have lost the pink jersey …”
Giro d’Italia stage 15 results
1.Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) 4:58:52
2.Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) +2’’
3. Jai Hindley (Sunweb) +4’’
Giro d’Italia general classification after stage 15
1.Joao Almeida (Deceuninck-Quickstep) 59:27:38
2. Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) +15’’
3. Jai Hindley (Sunweb) +2’56’’
