This week offers stages for climbers and GC leaders, as well as stages for punchers. Sprinters will have the last day in Rome for them (providing they can catch a breakaway of Italian contis...)
Standings after 15 stages
General time classification
Le gap between the Dane and the Portuguese hasn't changed in a week in absolute value, just the sign has changed :-) Scaroni was 5^th^ but had to withdraw.
- Jonas Vingegaard ๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma:
- Afonso Eulalio ๐ต๐น Bahrain: +2โฒ24โณ
- Felix Gall ๐ฆ๐น Decathlon: +2โฒ50โณ
- Thymen Arensman ๐ณ๐ฑ Ineos: +3โฒ03โณ
- Jai Hindley Bora: +3โฒ43โณ
- Giulio Pellizzari ๐ฎ๐น Bora: +4โฒ22โณ
- Michael Storer ๐ฆ๐บ Tudor: +4โฒ46โณ
- Ben O'Connor ๐ฆ๐บ Jayco: +5โฒ22โณ
- Derek Gee ๐จ๐ฆ Lidl-Trek: +5โฒ41โณ
- Davide Piganzoli ๐ฎ๐น Visma: +6โฒ13โณ
- Mathys Rondel ๐ซ๐ท Tudor: +6โฒ58โณ
Points classification
The podium order is still the same, but Milan, who scored only 2 points in a week, may have given up.
- Paul Magnier ๐ซ๐ท Soudal-QS: 145 pts
- Jhonatan Narvaez ๐ช๐จ UAE: 131
- Jonathan Milan ๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek: 78
- Davide Ballerini ๐ฎ๐น Astana: 70
- Manuele Tarozzi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 48
Intermediary Sprints classification
Top-5 has the same members, but all riders from Italian teams kept on scoring while Milan didn't at all.
- Manuele Tarozzi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 60
- Diego Sevilla ๐ช๐ธ Polti: 48
- Mattia Bais ๐ฎ๐น polti: 44
- Martin Marcellusi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 25
- Jonathan Milan ๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek: 23
RB Sprints classification
The classification stalled, basically only Eulalio kept on scoring.
- Manuele Tarozzi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 31
- Afonso Eulalio ๐ต๐น Bahrain: 30
- Diego Sevilla ๐ช๐ธ Polti: 22
Mountain classification
Sevilla could only score 3 points this week.
- Jonas Vingegaard ๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma: 161
- Jardi Van der Lee ๐ณ๐ฑ EF: 77
- Giulio Ciccone ๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek: 75
- Felix Gall ๐ฆ๐น Decathlon: 72
- Diego Sevilla ๐ช๐ธ Polti: 63
Fuga classification
Only 30 km more for Sevilla this week. Often the breakaway groups were too large to count. But M. Bais managed to score more than 250 km.
- Diego Sevilla ๐ช๐ธ Polti: 753
- Mattia Bais ๐ฎ๐น polti: 516
- Manuele Tarozzi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 458
- Martin Marcellusi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 403
- Mirco Maestri ๐ฎ๐น Polti: 347
Teams classification
2 teams are clearly above the others.
- Visma ๐ณ๐ฑ
- RB Bora ๐ฉ๐ช +0โฒ24โณ
- Tudor๐จ๐ญ +22โฒ05โณ
- Ineos ๐ฌ๐ง +22โฒ07โณ
- Q36.5 ๐จ๐ญ +30โฒ58โณ
- Decathlon ๐ซ๐ท +49โฒ06โณ
Stages
Stage 16, Tuesday 26
113 km, high difficulty (15 pts), no sprint zone, 1โณ splits
This stage exhibits a funny design: its middle part is very much for punchers, but then there is a break, and finally a long finish-on-top for pure climbers.
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Stage 17, Wednesday 27
202 km, medium difficulty (25 pts), no sprint zone, 1โณ splits
A stage for breakaways, punchers and guys doing secondary/tertiary classifications.
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Stage 18, Thursday 28
171 km, low difficulty (50 pts), 3 km sprint zone, 1โณ splits
It could have been a stage for sprinters, if it wasn't for this last hump just 10 km from the line. Don't be fooled by its classification as 4^th^ category, it is not not a false flat but a wall, 1 km at 12%. A few years ago, we would have said this was tailored for Alaphilippe.
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Stage 19, Friday 29
151 km, high difficulty (15 pts), no sprint zone, 1โณ splits
We find a bit of mountain here! 6 climbs including the cima Coppi of this year (Passo Giau) and almost 5000 m of elevation... For the GPM, Passo Giau will be worth 50 points, Passo Duran (the 1^st^ climb of the day) 40 pts, and the other 4, 18 points each; therefore 162 points are available.
Allowed delay will be around 55 mn, so there is very little hope to eliminate even a sick sprinter.
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Stage 20, Saturday 30
200 km, high difficulty (15 pts), no sprint zone, 1โณ splits
The last mountain stage, with a main climb done twice.
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Stage 21, Sunday 31
131 km, no difficulty (50 pts), 5 km sprint zone, 3โณ splits
A flat stage to finish on 8 laps of the circuit in the capital city.
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Stage 20, Saturday 30
Tarozzi (๐ฎ๐น Bardiani) and Warbasse (๐บ๐ธ Tudor) did a chase for more than 50 km, alone 1 mn behind a breakaway of 5. Tarozzi๐ฎ๐น needed the I.S. points for the Traganti Volanti classification that he leads just a few points ahead of the next guys. Unfortunately for him, not only he arrived cooked in the group after over an hour of 2 vs 5 effort, not only the I.S. was on top of a climb, but in the group there were both Leknessund (๐ณ๐ด Uno-X) and Silva (๐บ๐พ Astana), who, as I said yesterday, rank 4^th^ and 3^rd^ in Cyclamen jersey classification! So poor Tarozzi๐ฎ๐น was beaten by both in the sprint, and his first place in Traganti Volanti classification is not 100% secured (even though he scored a few points, which is better than nothing and will make things easier to control tomorrow).
Naturally, none of the 3 French Eurosport commentators could understand why those 2 guys went for the sprint and didn't leave it to Tarozzi๐ฎ๐น, for none of those 3 commentators can be arsed to give a quick look at classifications before the start of the stage, or even during the first 70 km of the stage despite 1 or 2 of them spending their time looking at a computer screen instead of watching the race. Also, none except the old consultant (Jacky Durand) reads a few pages of regulations in 3 weeks (you'd expect it would rather be the role of the journalist but he spends his time browsing PCS...).
Arrieta (๐ช๐ธ UAE) became first in the RB classification. Does UAE really need this?
None of the teams with a leader in/near top-10 attempted anything before the final watts contest today: nobody sent people ahead in a breakaway, and nobody tried anything in the first major climb, even after Visma slew down, and nobody had time to try anything in the last climb (before Vingegaard attacked, then there was a little bit of action behind, but the culling had already been performed). There wasn't a single change in top-11 (only Bernal (๐จ๐ด Ineos) overperformed a bit compared to his GC rank, but not enough (and he had to drag Arensman๐ฌ๐ง all the way up)). I had fallen asleep when Vingegaard crossed the line, and missed his handlebar licking...
The stage was clearly designed to allow strategical actions. It wasn't a simple, single climb, finish-on-top. There was a 25 km long flat zone between the two major climbs which allowed the team strategy of using as a relay someone sent ahead earlier. And to go ahead earlier, the 3^rd^ category climb 50 km before the first main climb was perfect. They even had moved the I.S. (usually coming much later in the stage) just before it, so that the GC strategy could start after an eventual battle for Cyclamen, not interfering with its preparation and even benefiting of the hesitation that often comes after an I.S.
Visma didn't care about the Blue jersey and gifted it to Ciccone (๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek), who rode more for Vingegaard๐ฉ๐ฐ than he did for his leader Gee๐จ๐ฆ.
Visma also managed to blow up for nothing its own pretender to the White jersey Piganzoli๐ฎ๐น...
Kuss was as useless, or badly used, as usual. His stage victory didn't change this.
Gee helped ciccone at every opportunity and ciccone instantly ran out of energy as soon as it was his turn to work for gee. Ciccone is officialy on my shit list now.
Kudos to gee for jumping into the top 5 all by himself with basically no help from any teammates.
Arensman's corpse had to be dragged uphill by bernal every day, hindley had pellizzari when he needed him....gee had to do it all by himself.
Trek should be ashamed of this giro. Couldnt even get milan a win (hopefully tomorrow with a derek gee leadout)
Ciccone must have put in his contract that he can do whatever he wants during his national tour. I can't see any other logical reason.
I didn't believe in Gee before the tour, or even in the beginning of it; yet after 2 weeks it was clear, even to me, that he could get a nice GC result. As the team was built for fair part around Milan, there wouldn't be much workforce available for help, so it was important that the co-leader would help him, after said co-leader was already offered many personal chances since the beginning of the tour. But no.