Penultimate stage of the Giro d'Italia 2022
The twentieth and penultimate stage of the Giro d'Italia 2022, a 168km pure mountain stage that took place today starting in Belluno and finishing uphill at the Fedaia pass on the Marmolada. Overall vertical ascent speaks for itself: 4.490m.
The situation at the start was one of the "tightest" in memory of the Giro, with the first two riders Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grandier) and Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) separated by just 3 seconds after more than 81 hours of racing! The third, the Spanish Landa Meana (Bahrain Victorious) was also quite close at 1'05", followed by a more detached Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Qazaqstan Team) who is in any case excellent fourth, back at the top of world cycling at the age aged 37.
Stage description Bolzano-Passo Fedaia
From the start in Belluno, located at 358m above sea level, the stage started off slightly downhill for the first 20km, to then tackle a couple of hills which led to the beginning of the constant climb towards the flying finish line of Cencenighe Agordino (774m).
It is from here that the real climb towards the first Mountain Grand Prix began which brought the runners to the 1918m of the San Pellegrino Pass.
A quick dive towards the valley and the race reached Canazei, from where the peloton began the second effort of the day: the ascent of the legendary Passo Pordoi, second GPM at 2239m, Cima Coppi (i.e. the highest point reached by all stages) of this 105th Giro d'Italia.
From here, an interim downhill phase in which no one forced, after 4 hours of racing at an average of 37.6km/h, led to the start of the last demanding climb of the 2022 Giro d'Italia, halfway through which the second flying finish line of Malga Ciapela (1460m) was also set, from where - with 162km and a half in the legs - the athletes had to use up all their energies to face the last 5km and a half with gradients of 18% ( and never below 10% in the last kilometres) until the third and last GPM of the day, the arrival at the Fedaia Pass.
Who won the last mountain stage of the Giro d'Italia 2022
Until the last climb, the stage didn't give any particular emotions, with the pink jersey group permanently detached by about 6 minutes from the lead of the race up to 5km from the finish.
Carapaz, Hindley and Landa were always together until after the last flying finish of Malga Ciapela, which had no influence for them with respect to the bonuses up for grabs, which were won by the Italian Alessandro Covi (23 years old) who - curiosity - ran with one white shoe and one black shoe since, a few days before, his shoe had been ruined by contact with another runner and had to be replaced during the race. We don't know if it was superstition or other reasons, Alessandro decided to end not only the Giro but the whole season with this particular style.
At 5km, when the most demanding stretch of the stage is missing, Domel Novak (Bahrain Victorious) takes off and, in the pink jersey group, Bahrain gives way to Ineos who now wants to try to win the stage, with an action that shatters in an instant the set-up of Bahrain and the whole pink jersey group that had been compact up to that moment.
At 3Km Alessandro Covi's advantage was reduced to 45",
At 2.6km, Hindley sprints and leaves Michel Landa in place, but Carapaz stays behind.
The fight for the pink jersey is unlocked at 1.9km from the finish when, with an excellent team work, Ineos teammate Lennard Kämna pulls Hindley creating a 10m tear on Carapaz. At this point Hindley's action becomes more and more powerful and he immediately understands that he is the strongest uphill today. But that's not enough, less than 1km from the finish Richard Carapaz gets stuck leaving a huge final lead of 1'28" and also being overtaken by the returning Landa (who comes 50" behind Hindley).
It ends with a complete upheaval in the general standings with Hindely taking the pink jersey and gaining an overall lead of 1'25" over Carapaz.