The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Giro d'Italia Stage 19 live blog

27th May, 2016
Stage type: Mountain
Distance: 162 kilometres
Start: Pinerolo
Finish: Risoul
TV: Live, Eurosport and SBS

General classification
1 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 73:50:37
2 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge 0:03:00
3 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:23
4 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:04:43
5 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Team Katusha 0:04:50
6 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff Team 0:05:34
7 Bob Jungels (Lux) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:07:57
8 Andrey Amador (CRc) Movistar Team 0:08:53
9 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:10:05
10 Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr) Dimension Data 0:11:15
Steven Kruijswijk maintains the pink leader's jersey heading into the penultimate mountain stage. (Team Sky)
Roar Guru
27th May, 2016
267
2450 Reads

With three days to go in this edition of the Giro d’Italia, the peloton hits the mountains for the final push to the finish line in Torino on Sunday. Join The Roar for live coverage of Stage 19 from 9:30pm (AEST).

The penultimate stage in the mountains begins in the town of Pinerolo, the finishing town for yesterday’s stage, hitting the flat roads around the town and moving towards the first climb of the day.

The road starts to rise after 40 kilometres, and it won’t stop rising for the next 60 kilometres, at the top of the hors category climb of the Colle dell’Agnello after 104 kilometres.

Before then though, the riders will move through the first two intermediate sprints of the day, in the towns of Piasco (50 kilometres) and Sampeyre (75 kilometres), while travelling on a steady uphill gradient.

It could take a long while for the breakaway to go, as with the two intermediates sprint situated before the climb, both Lampre and Trek-Segafredo will want to keep it together so their riders vyving for the points classification have the opportunity to bag some points before the road becomes too difficult for them to handle.

As I mentioned earlier, the whole process of the road starting to rise and the hors category climb being crested take over 60 kilometres to eventuate. At kilometre 40, the altitude is similar to the start point in Pinerolo, at around 350 metres. By the time they summit the climb, they will max out at 2740 metres. So overall, a rise of around 2400 metres for 60 kilometres equates to around four per cent.

If that stat was not brutal enough, the actual climb of the Colle dell’Agnello starts at 85 kilometres covered and lasts for a further 21 kilometres.

The first five kilometres of the categorised climb are at around 5.5 per cent, however the next seven kilometres are at around four per cent. This leaves the riders to contend with the final 7.5 kilometres of the climb, which average over nine per cent, with the first few kilometres of this part over ten per cent. The middle part of the pinch is fairly steady, at around eight per cent, before ramping up to around ten per cent for the remaining three or so kilometres.

Advertisement

The climb is crested inside the final 60 kilometres, and will immediately descend into the final 20 kilometres, before the final climb up to ski resort at Risoul.

The climb to Risoul has two parts. The first 9.5 kilometres averages around 6.5 per cent, before the final 3.25 kilometres are at 8.2 per cent.

It’s a difficult final, but the major difficulty will be the previous climb at altitude.

If anybody is going to beat Steven Kruijswijk to the lead of the Giro by race end, they must attack him early and test his ability to ride at altitude. With him only having one key teammate, Enrico Battaglin, who can follow on the climbs, the Dutchman will be isolated early in the stage.

Expect both Movistar and Astana to send riders up the road to play the springboard roles for attacks from Alejandro Valverde and Vincenzo Nibali.

close