After the two finishes-on-top of the first Italian week, the General Classification has begun to take shape. This week in the north-west of Italy will start with a Time Trial that will comfort a few position and reorganise others. The unexpected Eulalio🇵🇹 might still keep the Pink jersey after it, and otherwise he certainly will remain on the podium.
Standing after 9 stages
General time classification
- Afonso Eulalio 🇵🇹 Bahrain
- Jonas Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma: +2′24″
- Felix Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon: +2′59″
- Jai Hindley Bora: +4′32″
- Christian Scaroni Astana: +4′43″
- Thymen Arensman 🇳🇱 Ineos: +5′
- Mathys Rondel 🇫🇷 Tudor: +5′01″
- Ben O'Connor 🇦🇺 Jayco: +5′03″
- Giulio Pellizzari 🇮🇹 Bora: +5′15″
- Michael Storer 🇦🇺 Tudor: +5′20″
Points classification
Not much progress there.
- Paul Magnier 🇫🇷 Soudal-QS: 130 pts
- Jhonatan Narvaez 🇪🇨 UAE: 86
- Jonathan Milan 🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek: 76
- Davide Ballerini 🇮🇹 Astana: 70
- Manuele Tarozzi 🇮🇹 Bardiani: 48
Intermediary Sprints classification
- Manuele Tarozzi 🇮🇹 Bardiani: 48
- Diego Sevilla 🇪🇸 Polti: 36
- Mattia Bais 🇮🇹 polti: 24
- Jonathan Milan 🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek: 23
- Martin Marcellusi 🇮🇹 Bardiani: 13
RB Sprints classification
- Manuele Tarozzi 🇮🇹 Bardiani: 30
- Diego Sevilla 🇪🇸 Polti: 22
- Afonso Eulalio 🇵🇹 Bahrain and 6 other riders: 15
Mountain classification
The 2 finishes-on-top have killed the game for a good while 🙁
- Jonas Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma: 111
- Diego Sevilla 🇪🇸 Polti: 60
- Felix Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon: 48
- Einer Rubio 🇨🇴 Movistar: 22
- Igor Arrieta 🇪🇸 UAE & Nelson Oliveira 🇵🇹 Movistar : 18
Fuga classification
- Diego Sevilla 🇪🇸 Polti: 721 (!!)
- Manuele Tarozzi 🇮🇹 Bardiani: 368
- Tim Naberman 🇳🇱 Picnic: 310 (who's he?)
- Martin Marcellusi 🇮🇹 Bardiani: 251
- Mattia Bais 🇮🇹 polti: 249
Teams classification
- Visma 🇳🇱
- RB Bora 🇩🇪 +1′44″
- Movistar 🇪🇸 +8′54″
- Astana 🇰🇿 +10′42″
- Ineos 🇬🇧 +15′32″
- Tudor🇨🇭 +18′47″
Stages
Stage 10, Tuesday 19
42 km, individual Time Trial (15 pts)
It takes place at the same location as Tirreno–Adriatico introductory TT and is as flat, but it spreads over a much longer distance of the coast.
Stage 11, Wednesday 20
195 km, medium difficulty (25 pts), 3 km sprint zone, 1″ splits
The first half of the stage may see a struggle between a breakaway and sprinters for the I.S. Then the second half is for punchers, inside a breakaway or not. Mind the extra little winding hump in the finish town.
map and profile of the finish
Stage 12, Thursday 21
175 km, low difficulty (50 pts), 5 km sprint zone, 3″ splits
This stage was designed to have a breakaway, and then a fight with the peloton for a bunch sprint.
Stage 13, Friday 22
189 km, medium difficulty (25 pts), 3 km sprint zone, 1″ splits
90% of this stage are flat, but there are two significant yet not very steep climbs about 20 km from the finish. Another Narvaez-compatible stage?
map and profile of the finish
Stage 14, Saturday 23
133 km, high difficulty (15 pts), no sprint zone, 1″ splits
A pure mountain stage, which starts with a climb, ends with a climb, and present several other climbs in between, with little flat as the stage is short: 3 sections of 10, 5 and 10 km again and that's it. The percentages are not very steep, but the first and last climbs are very long.
map and profile of the finish
Stage 15, Sunday 24
157 km, no difficulty (50 pts), 5 km sprint zone, 3″ splits
The stage to Milano, kept short and purely flat, is made for sprinters.
Stage 11, Wednesday 20
Ciccone🇮🇹 has truly turned into the Pinot🇫🇷 of his last years: he always gets angry at riders from other teams who do not make everything they can to make him win, on the day he has decided to win...
Meanwhile, Narvaez🇪🇨 still manages to find a boatload of wallies to ride for him and his 3^rd^ victory in 8 stages, despite not hiding his intentions and his form. Wonderful. As usual, if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, call Mas🇪🇸 and he will drive you home; the guy is more reliable than Europ Assistance...
Anyway, the fight for breakaways was constant. The first breakaway was initiated by FDJs, they were 3 in it, but 2 of them including the one who started it were dropped after a while... UAE missed that one and also the second main. They had to launch a late counter-attack with Narvaez🇪🇨, and it wasn't easy for that new group to join the first group.
Astana... Scaroni🇮🇹 crashed in a descent, tripping over Zana🇮🇹 whose crash may have itself been caused by Van EEtvelt🇧🇪's crash. He wasn't very far and for 40 km (!) he tried hard to get back in the front group. But in that group, his teammate Ulissi🇮🇹 was relaying, pulling and even attacking once, right on a occasion when Scaroni🇮🇹 was only like 10 seconds away and could finally join them...
There were surprising moves by a couple of riders from the peloton in the last climb: Gualdi (🇮🇹 Lotto) and Raccagni (🇮🇹 Soudal). Like they wanted to score UCI points. Or as a matter of principle because their teammates who were in the breakaway had been caught after their crash, perhaps. They managed to break away from the peloton and stay ahead of him.
The commentators couldn't understand why Poels🇳🇱 would sprint at the peloton's front. For me, it is simply because Unibet is on a mission for UCI points, and it brought 15 very easy points. (That's more than a stage victory on a 2.1!)