Dunbar rues failed gamble as he finishes third behind first-time winner Benedetti
Eddie Dunbar had to settle for third place as Cesare B ene - detti took a popular first professional win with victory on stage 12 of the Giro d’italia and Valerio Conti passed the leader’s pink jersey to his teammate Jan Polanc.
Bora-hansgrohe’s Benedetti and Irishman Dunbar of Team Ineos were among five riders to reach the finish line in Pinerolo together, the last sur vivors of a 25-man group who had gone up the road almost as soon as they left the start in Cuneo 158 kilometres earlier.
After the group splintered on the imposing climb of the Mon to so late in the stage, eight riders regrouped on the descent before one final test in Pinerolo.
Dunbar closed on Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-s egafredo) and Eros Cap ecchi (Deceu - nick-quick-step) up the steep cobbled climb towards the finish but the three riders then began to look at each other, allowing Benedetti and Bahrain-merida’s Damiano Caruso to sweep by.
Dunbar, making his Grand Tour debut having been thrust into the team at late notice when Egan Bernal broke his collar bone in training, was disappointed with third and blamed a lack of experience.
“I felt like I was one of the strongest here ,” said the 22-year-old. “I knew I wasn’t the quickest but certainly one of the strongest. I gambled in the finish.
“With Brambilla and Eros being Italian I knew they’d be a bit more keen than me to get to the finish so I gambled on that and got caught by the guys behind. That’s bike racing, you live and learn.”
Ben ed et ti, an Italian with the Bora team who has been a support rider for his entire career, was in the early breakaway then accelerated from a select group of riders in a sprint finish.
“I’ ve worked a lot for the others in the past but to day I got my opportunity,” Benedetti said. “I’m not (usually) a winner.”
Benedetti required 3 hours, 41 minutes to complete the 158- kilometre (98- mile) leg from Cuneo to Pinerolo.
In the overall standings, Polanc leads Primoz Roglic by 4 minutes, 7 seconds. Vincenzo Nibali, one of the pre - race favorites, is fifth overall, 5:51 behind.
Mitch elton-Scott’ s Simon Yates sits 13th, still three minutes and 46 seconds behind Roglic, while his fellow Lancastrian Hugh Car thy of EF Education First was one of the riders to lose time.
The 24-year- old slipped to tenth overall, seven minutes and 33 seconds off pink, but will now don the white jersey as the best young rider.
Polanc said: “It was a team tactic that I would go in the breakaway so we could have a better control over the race. It was also a way to keep the pink jersey in the team.”
Mike lL and a and Miguel Angel Lopez attacked on the first-category climb to Monto so and gained about 30 seconds on the other overall favorites.
Before the stage began, sprinters Caleb E wan and Elia Viviani withdrew from the race. Ewan won two stages, including the 11th leg a day earlier, while Viviani posted three second-place finishes.
Stage 13 today is one of the race’s toughest, with two category one climbs and one category two ascent, along with an uphill finish at the end of the 196- kilometre leg from Pinerolo to Ceresole Reale.