Basque rider escapes group of ten while the peloton takes a rest before the Dolomites
Jon Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) took the biggest win of his career to date, with a breakaway victory in the sixteenth stage of the Giro d’Italia, between Limone sul Garda and Falzes/Pfalzen, as the peloton enjoyed an extension to its rest day. The 23-year-old Basque rider escaped the rest of a ten-man break on the final steep climb in the final four kilometres, and managed to hold off the chasers on the flat finishing straight.
The sprint for second was won by Alessandro De Marchi (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela), sixteen seconds behind Izagirre, ahead of Stef Clement (Rabobank), Mathias Frank (BMC Racing), and José Herrada (Movistar), as the rest were scattered on the climb behind them.
“I’ve won a stage at the Vuelta a Asturias but this is my first stage win in a grand tour,” explained a delighted Izagirre after his victory.
“I come from a family of cyclists, there’s a long tradition of cycling in my family,” he said. “My dad did cyclocross but wasn’t a professional, while my brother is a professional too. But he’s bigger and stronger than me; I’m more of a climber. This is my second season as a professional but this is my first big win. I think winning a stage in the third week of the Giro d’Italia means I’m a good stage racer, who can recover well.
“There’s no real alliance with the Katusha team and Rodríguez,” he added, denying that there was any collusion between the Spanish riders at the Italian race. “We’ve got Mikel Nieve who is strong and doing well overall. We’ll be doing all we can to help him.”
With Izagirre, De Marchi, Clement, Frank and Herrada in the break were Luca Mazzanti (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia), stage 12 winner Lars Bak (Lotto-Belisol), Nikolas Maes (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Matthias Brändle (NetApp) and Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank).
It took more than an hour for the ten men to get away but, once they had finally escaped – 63km into the 173km stage – their lead kept growing, and growing, and growing, to a maximum of 12’32”, at the Traguardo Volante sprint in Bressanone/Brixen, with 28.8km to go. The Katusha team of Maglia Rosa Joaquim Rodríguez controlled the peloton behind, but had no interest whatsoever in pulling them back.
The peloton was finally forced into action as it entered the closing kilometres, as Liquigas-Cannondale and Garmin-Barracuda tried to put pressure on Rodríguez and his team. There was no danger however, and, as Juan Antonio Flecha (Team Sky) outsprinted Stefano Pirazzi (Colnago-CSF Inox) to take eleventh place, they were 8’54” behind.
Rodríguez and all the other overall contenders finished safely in the peloton, meaning that the Catalan would take his Maglia Rosa into the climbs of the Dolomites to come with his 30 second lead over Garmin-Barracuda’s Ryder Hesjedal intact.
Reactions to follow.
A traditional transitional stage sees a breakaway go while the peloton sleeps
After two mountain stages in the Alps to the west, stage 16 would take the peloton closer to the climbs of the Dolomites that would be tackled in the important closing stages to come. Despite riding under the shadow of some of the mountain range’s giant peaks, the stage was to stick to the valley roads as it made its way north from the beautiful shores of Lake Garda, into the semi-autonomous, bilingual province of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol.
Despite being classified as a ‘medium mountain’ stage, there were to be no classified climbs in the entire course, so stage 15 hero Matteo “Rambo” Rabottini (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia) could relax in his new blue jersey for at least a day. For reasons best known the the organisers, there would be no points for the first man over the top of the final rise to the finish, despite it featuring a section of cobblestones and gradients of up to 12%.
Since it was not one of the high mountain stages, the time bonuses made a return, at both the Traguardo Volante sprint, and on the finish line; making a late attack a tempting proposition for the overall contenders.
Since the stage had breakaway written all over it, there was a big contest between the adventurous hopefuls that wanted to get into the lead group. A 13-man group briefly escaped early on, including Jack Bauer (Garmin-Barracuda), local rider Enrico Battaglin (Colnago-CSF Inox), and Boaro, but was only able to get a few seconds clear before being swallowed up by the fast-moving peloton. Despite the unclassified bump at Vigolo Baselga after 40km, the riders covered a total of 49.8km in the first hour.
Shortly afterwards De Marchi, Frank, Izagirre, Mazzanti, Bak, Herrada, Maes, Stef Clement, Brändle and Boaro got away and, although they were almost caught again soon afterwards, were allowed to build a lead as the peloton relaxed.
Most of them had been up the road before in the race; besides stage winner Bak, De Marchi had been narrowly beaten into third on the mountaintop finish of Cervinia on stage 14, while Boaro had been the last attacker standing on stage 11, into Montecatini Terme, as well as finishing fourth in the opening Herning time trial.
Herrada was the best-placed of the ten riders, in 46th position, just 32’26” behind Rodriiguez, but this was deemed enough by the Catalan’s Katusha team, and he was allowed to go.
As they passed through the feedzone, in Ora/Auer after 88km, the ten riders’ lead was up to 6’15”, and it kept on rising as the stage progressed; it finally topped ten minutes with 58km to go, and as they entered the final 50km it was up to 10’45”. As Katusha led the relaxed peloton, it kept growing however, up to 11’30” as the leaders entered the final 45km.
Even if the peloton was to spring to life however, with no obstacles bar the final rise to the finish, the ten riders were far too far gone to be caught.
The finish is in sight and the cracks begin to appear in the ten-man co-operation
Mazzanti rolled unchallenged over the Traguardo Volante sprint in Bressanone/Brixen, with 28.8km to go, and the nine other breakaways crossed the line behind him. By the time the peloton arrived in the ancient cathedral city, 12’32” had passed. With all the points and bonuses already taken there was no flurry of sprinters, battling for the red jersey; the Katusha team calmly rolled over the line, still travelling slower than the ten men up ahead.
Finally, as the ten fugitives entered the final 20km, their lead began to come down a little. With the stage winner now sure to come from one of their number, turns on the front began to get a little shorter, as nobody wanted to expend more energy than the others. With nothing to interrupt the gradually rising gradient though, there was nothing to provide a springboard for an attack.
The ten men were seemingly waiting for the final rise to the finish to fight out the result of the stage.
As they entered the final ten kilometres, the peloton was still 11’40 behind the ten leaders, as Team Sky brought white jersey Sergio Henao, and red jersey Mark Cavendish forward to keep them out of danger.
Finally the action starts as the climb to the finish begins
With 4.6km to go, the climb to the finish began and Herrada attacked immediately, but Frank led the rest across the the Spanish rider. As they arrived at the brief cobbled section Izagirre jumped, but Frank was across to him as well; the Swiss rider finally made a move himself, and too Izagirre with him.
Herrada was fighting back up to them, with De Marchi coming around him, but, one kilometre from the top Izagirre went again. De Marchi gave chase, but couldn’t catch the Euskaltel-Euskadi rider and, as he neared the top, the man in orange had a twenty metre gap over the Italian.
Herrada and Frank passed De Marchi at the three kilometre banner, but Izagirre was clear, and was opening his advantage over the rest. As the road levelled out, with 2.4km to go, the Basque rider was 150 metres clear of the three chasers, with the other seven riders scattered on the climb behind them.
The gap was just eight seconds as the three pursuers hit the flat road to the finish, but they were not co-operating properly, and making no progress on the lone leader.
Meanwhile, still almost ten minutes behind them, the Liquigas-Cannondale team had sprung into life at the front of the peloton.
Herrada left Frank and De Marchi behind and set out on a lone pursuit of Izagirre, but he just couldn’t close the gap; as De Marchi fought back up to Herrada, Clement caught up with Frank, but they were racing for places now as Izagirre was heading for victory. The Basque rider raised both arms to the sky, before beating his chest, as he crossed the line to take his greatest win to date.
De Marchi took the sprint for second, beating his bars in frustration, while Clement – who had pulled Frank across, took third just behind him.
As the peloton hit the climb, Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM) took the lead, stringing out the peloton behind him, but only succeeded in dropping a lot of the sprinters and non-climbers. Garmin-Barracuda took over as the climb continued, with Liquigas-Cannondale in force near the front, but Rodríguez was close to the front and there was no real danger to the Catalan’s position.
Having cut the lead peloton down to size, Garmin-Barracuda and Katusha kept the pace high into the final kilometres. As the flamme rouge approached Pirazzi attacked though, and was followed by Flecha, and the two of them were allowed to cross the line a few seconds ahead of the rest; Flecha took the sprint for eleventh, 8’54” behind the winner.
With a truce observed between the overall contenders for most of the day, the only change in the general classification was Herrada’s jump to 40th overall, but the Movistar rider still trailed Rodríguez by 23’46”.