O'Connor wins stage 17 of Giro, Soler takes Vuelta stage on home turf
The Australian rider Ben O’Connor won the 17th stage of the Giro d’Italia, a 203km mountain trek from Bassano del Grappa, as João Almeida retained the overall lead at the end of a quiet day for the top contenders.
O’Connor gave the NTT team, who are looking for a sponsor next year, a much-needed win as he prevailed from the day’s 18-man breakaway ahead of Hermann Pernsteiner and Thomas de Gendt.
Almeida faced only one brief attack from Jai Hindley in the final climb up to Madonna di Campiglio as he stayed 17 seconds ahead of Wilco Kelderman in the overall standings. Kelderman’s Sunweb teammate Hindley lies 2min 58sec off the pace.
“Today it was a hard day, a lot of climbing but I had the perfect team with me,” said Almeida. “That’s one more day in the maglia rosa. Team Sunweb tried to attack but I was feeling good. Tomorrow it’s another day, I look forward to it.”
There will be no hiding place in the 18th stage on Thursday, as it takes the peloton over 207km to the Laghi di Cancano, through the Passo Stelvio, 2,756 metres above sea level where the temperatures are expected to be just above 0°C. It might be the last chance to make big differences as organisers were forced to redraw the route for Saturday’s stage because of Covid-19 restrictions in France.
The race’s penultimate stage will no longer climb the 2744m Colle dell’Agnello or cross the French border for the Col d’Izoard, instead climbing Sestriere three times. The new 190km stage 20 will include just over 3,500m of climbing on wider, faster roads instead of the 5,500m of vertical elevation of the original 198km route.
“The French authorities have withdrawn the permission for the race to go on their roads due to the new anti-Covid-19 crowd rules,” the race director, Mauro Vegni, told the Italian broadcaster Rai. “The new stage gives us the guarantees that it can be held if there’s bad weather. We haven’t been able to create the amount or difficulty of climbing but there will still be around 4,000m of climbing.”
Roglic holds Vuelta lead as Soler takes stage
The defending Vuelta a España champion, Primoz Roglic, narrowly extended his overall race lead but was pipped to the stage win by Marc Soler.
The Spanish rider benefited from a magnificent team performance on home turf from Movistar, who dictated the pace on the 151km hilly route through Navarre. A large group of riders were in a breakaway on the final climb, before splitting on the descent to the finish at Lekunberri.
Soler was the early leader on the final downhill run and his team worked tirelessly to stop a challenge from Roglic’s Jumbo-Visma teammate George Bennett. Soler further increased his pace to finish 19 seconds ahead of Slovenian Roglic and collect his first Grand Tour stage win.
Ireland’s Dan Martin (Israel StartUp) came third while Ineos’ Ecuadorian rider Richard Carapaz came fourth, also 19sec behind Soler. Roglic collected six bonus seconds and has a 9sec lead in the general classification over the second-placed Martin and 11sec over Carapaz.
“We were riding on home turf today, we were very motivated about competing here in Navarre and we came up with a plan to play to our strengths on the start of the final climb,” said Soler. “We really started to put the work in from that point and the truth is from there to the finish line everything went as planned.”
Thursday’s stage is another hilly route, travelling 166km from Lodosa with a very steep final climb to La Laguna Negra, near Vinuesa.