Giro stage 12 report / discussion: A day for the breakaway ahead of the high mountains
Nico Denz made it back-to-back German stage wins at the Giro d’Italia after the Bora-Hansgrohe rider beat Trek-Segafredo’s Toms Skujiņš and Israel – Premier Tech’s Sebastian Berwick in a three-up sprint on a breakaway day in Italy.
The main feature of the 185 km stage 12 from Bra to Rivoli was the category two Colle Braida (11,2 km à 5.7%) situated within the final 35 km. Before the race arrived at the foot of this ascent, the day had already been given to the breakaway, as the GC teams took a rare quiet day off before a series of mountain days to come.
A large breakaway group that originally included the likes of Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla), Mads Pedersen, Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates), Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal – Quick Step) went up the road. Pedersen was present for the intermediate sprint before dropping back, while stage winner Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) finally succumbed to the illness he’d been struggling with for the past few days and abandoned the race.
The presence of Jumbo-Visma duo Sepp Kuss and Michel Hessman up the road was slightly puzzling when Primož Roglič will need as much support as he can get over the coming days. Its number was soon whittled down to a quintet, before Samuele Battilstella (Astana-Qazaqstan) dropped after vomiting while on the bike (maybe those kebabs the other day weren’t such a good idea) while Alessandro Tonelli (Green Project-Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) was distanced on the last climb.
The final trio had time to play with as they sailed toward Rivoli. Denz led out the final couple of kilometres and he would not be overtaken by either Skujiņš or Berwick to snap up Bora-Hansgrohe’s first stage victory of the race.
Ineos Grenadiers’ Pavel Sivakov took the GC group over the line in 26th place, more than eight minutes behind the time of Denz, with no changes to the top 10 in the general classification.
Discussion – have your say in the comments:
-Do you enjoy days won by the breakaway?
-Why would Jumbo-Visma put riders in the breakaway ahead of a tough few days in the mountains?
-We have a series of mountain days ahead of us, who do you expect to emerge out the other side in the maglia rosa? Geraint Thomas, Primož Roglič or maybe someone else?
Brief results:
- Nico Denz (Bora-Hansgrohe)
- Toms Skujiņš (Trek-Segafredo) @ s.t.
- Sebastian Berwick (Israel – Premier Tech) @ :03
- Alessandro Tonelli (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) @ 0:58
- Marco Frigo (Israel – Premier Tech) @ 2:07
New GC:
- Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers)
- Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) @ :02
- João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) @ :22
- Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) @ :35
- Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) @ 1:28
