RoundSimon Yates (Team BikeExchange) can call himself the king of the Alpe di Mera. In the nineteenth stage of the Giro, 28-year-old Briton Joao Almeida and Egan Bernal held off. The pink jersey limited damage to 28 seconds and still maintains a comfortable lead in the overall standings. The last mountain stage is tomorrow, and the final time trial on Sunday.
After a hellish hour – 60 kilometers per hour on average – six people isolated themselves: Our fellow countryman Quinten Hermans was joined by Andrea Pasqualon, Larry Warbasse, Mark Christian, Giovanni Aleottien and Nicola Venchiarutti. The leading group quickly knew what time it was: as soon as the pre-gift went to four minutes, BikeExchange put itself in the lead of the peloton. Simon Yates caused the first cracks in the armor of the pink jersey Egan Bernal on Wednesday and wanted to repeat that on the final climb of the Alpe di Mera. Deceuninck-Quick.Step cooperated – Joao Almeida also felt good.
With perfect timing, on the first kilometers of the Alpe di Mera – a climb of 9.7 kilometers that mainly contained parts of well above ten percent in the second part – Christian’s last survivor was rolled up. What followed was the announced attack by Almeida. Caruso, Yates and Vlasov – the numbers 2, 3 and 4 in the rankings – drove towards him. And Bernal? It stayed put. Couldn’t be better? He was already counting on the chasing work of his INEOS teammates. Even when Yates left his companions behind …
On the steeper lanes, Yates drove second after second, but Daniel Martinez took Bernal in tow and brought his leader first to Almeida and co and then little by little closer to Yates. Afterwards it was up to Bernal himself. The Colombian did not close it anymore – he even had to let Almeida drive -, but at the finish his gap was only 28 seconds. So hardly any damage.
The last mountain stage is scheduled for tomorrow. The final time trial in Milan will follow on Sunday.
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