Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon-Ag2r la Mondiale) outlasted, outrode, and outwitted an elite breakaway to take his second career Giro d’Italia stage win on a wet, unsettled day of weather and racing. Vendrame joined an early move that made up in firepower what it lacked in size, three stage winners among its initial five riders. After a second group joined later and amid a shifting cast of companions, Vendrame broke clear alone with 28 km to race to gradually build an unassailable lead and solo to victory. Overall leader Tadej Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates squad were content to let the break fight it out and he crossed the line almost 16 minutes behind in a group of around 20. There were no changes to the top 10 overall.
Dwindling opportunities
- With just two stages before Sunday’s finish in Rome, the lumpy, 157 km ride from Mortegliano to Sappada looked ripe for a breakaway and sure enough, attacks fired off fast and furious. But it took 25 km to establish a high-power group of five, with Vendrame, Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck), stage 1 winner Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers), stage 6 winner Pelayo Sánchez (Movistar), and stage 12 winner Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step).
- They were later joined by Jayco-AlUla’s Luke Plapp and the number swelled to 19 when a second countermove (including another Giro stage winner in EF Education-EasyPost’s Georg Steinhauser) bridged with 80 km to race.
- With substantially all of the climbing in the race’s second half, things started to come apart on the short but steep Passo Duron when Alaphilippe launched, and from there it was no quarter as riders fought it out over KOM points and bonus sprints. As a cold rain began to fall, it was Vendrame’s move that stuck, and with steady pacemaking he slowly but inexorably pushed his advantage out to over a minute at the top of the final climb, the Cima Sappada. With a rolling final 6 km to the finish, all that was left was a long celebration for the 29-year-old Italian.
- Pogačar himself had an uneventful day but Ineos’ Geraint Thomas went down with 6 km to go after a brief touch of wheels in the favorites’ group. He remounted quickly and regained contact, and looks to be relatively unscathed from the fall.
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Brief analysis
- Of the original five breakaway riders, Vendrame might have been on paper the least-likely winner. Three of his companions had already won a stage this Giro and the fourth, Hermans, had twice finished in the top-10 here and also won a stage at April’s hilly Itzulia Basque Country stage race. But it was the Italian’s long-range move at 28 km to go that set the stage, cagily pitting his breakaway companions behind against themselves in a classic Group 2 Syndrome dynamic. The Giro has been good to Vendrame: it accounts now for two of his five career victories.
- The Giro wasn’t as kind to Andrea Piccolo. The young Italian on EF Education had attempted to join an earlier, unsuccessful move, and crashed heavily with 32 km to go and was forced to abandon.
- Pogačar took no chances in the rain today. Over the top of the second-to-last climb, the Sella Valcalda, his UAE team massed on the front in their black rain jerseys to control the tricky descent (the one where Piccolo crashed out). With a breakaway posing zero threat to his race lead and his rivals openly acknowledging they’re racing for second, it’s clear now that Pogačar’s goal is simply to make it to Rome unscathed. Five stage wins, one of the largest leads in recent Giro history, and likely the KOM competition are more than enough spoils, it seems.
- A Grand Tour is a crucible, and you could see the pressure of a three-week race today not only in the quality of the breakaway, but the relative smallness of the pink jersey group. Yes, it was a hilly day. But even after allowing the break a massive lead and riding mostly tempo, fewer than 25 riders finished with Pogačar’s group. Tomorrow provides no respite.
Up next
It’s last call for breakaways with stage 20, a 184 km jaunt through the southern Dolomites, from Alpago to Bassano del Grappa. There are more than 4,500 meters of climbing, mostly in two ascents of the Category 1 Monte del Grappa (1,671 meters). The descent to the finish is twisty and technical, so expect a spicy finish as the almost-certain breakaway dukes it out for a last win before the expected sprint finish in Rome on Sunday.
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