photo credits @ RCS
Einer Rubio (Movistar) claimed victory in today’s significantly shortened stage 13 of the Giro d’Italia, beating Thibaut Pinot and EF-Easypost’s Alexander Cepeda atop Crans-Montana.
Pinot, who opened up his sprint too early was overhauled by Rubio, while Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), who’d been dropped from the breakaway, came across in fourth.
Meanwhile, Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Easypost), who attacked with 5 kilometers to go and opened up a slight gap of a few seconds, came across in sixth behind Valentin Paret-Peintre in sight of João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) and the maglia rosa Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers).
Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) finished at the same time as Thomas to keep the general classification at status quo, while most of the action in the maglia rosa group was out the back, with Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) the main victim as he was distanced from the group halfway up the climb.
Race Highlights
Foul weather resulted in three climbs being omitted from today’s stage, with riders being bussed across the Swiss border to start in Le Chable at the base of the Croix de Couer climb, forcing riders to tackle an uphill start the moment the flag was dropped.
From there, the race erupted all over the 15-kilometer climb, with seven riders attacking after 10 kilometers of racing.
Pinot, Rubio, Cepeda, Gee and Peintre later got away over the Croix de Coeur summit and held a decent gap down the gnarled, technical descent into the valley.
The quintet hit the Crans-Montana summit finish with three minutes of a gap, with Pinot quickly opening up an onslaught of attacks.
Indeed, the French rider attacked more than a half-dozen times in the bottom half of the Crans Montana climb, but was unable to shake Cepeda and Rubio.
Cepeda later responded with an attack with 5 kilometers remaining, but was unable to shed his rivals.
Further down the mountain, Cepeda’s teammate Carthy attacked out of the GC group.
The only other GC action came when Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Victorious) accelerated in the final kilometer, but to no avail.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
