Key events
139km to go. Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) eases away from the bunch to take this intermediate sprint. That looked like he had the blessing from Pedersen to go and take those points. De Bondt is a long way behind Pedersen in the points standings, with one more intermediate sprint to go.
140km to go. The break has 7mins 40secs on the peloton as we come up to the intermediate sprint.
Just a reminder, here is the current standings in the GC:
1. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
2. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +43secs
3. Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1min 21secs
4. Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) +2mins 32secs
5. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) +3mins 36secs
6. Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) +5min 13secs
7. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) +5mins 46secs
8. Einer Rubio (Movistar) +6mins 39secs
9. Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) +9mins 11secs
10. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +9mins 33secs
Please do send in your thoughts on today’s stage. My email is in bullet points at the top of the page.
150km to go. Mads Pedersen, the current wearer of the ‘maglia ciclamino’, will likely seal the points jersey in the upcoming intermediate sprint. The Lidl-Trek rider is in this large breakaway and has teammates who will be watching wheels.
156km to go. The big group has now come together so we have 31 riders in a large breakaway, which will whittle down on the climbs but sounds impressive for now. We’re about 15km away from the first serious uphill. Van Aert is in there and will be making everyone else nervous.
164km to go: This breakaway business isn’t done yet. We now have a much larger group of 19 riders who have set off the front of the peloton and are making decent time on baker’s dozen ahead of them. How happy those ahead will be to see Wout van Aert being brought up towards them remains to be seen, but Belgian has got himself in there.
This is your breakaway
The riders set off around 45 minutes ago from Verres and Timo Kielich (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis), Dries de Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ), Kim Heiduk (Ineos Grenadiers), Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek) and Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal Quick-Step) managed to get away from the peloton. Since then Mads Pedersen, Carlos Verona (both Lidl-Trek), Francesco Busatto (Intermarche-Wanty), Jon Barrenetxea (Movistar), Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) and Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane) went after them, eventually making contact form a breakaway of 13 riders which is about 1min 55sec clear.
For anyone in need of a catchup on the race situation, here is the report from stage 19:
Preamble
Today has to be the day if either Richard Carapaz or Simon Yates want to deny Isaac del Toro the pink jersey. The stage itself is a monster, with 4500m of altitude gain spread over 205km, culminating in the climb of the Colle delle Finestre – a mountain that has claimed some souls in the Giro before. Yates cracked here in 2018 when Chris Froome staged his stunning comeback to win the pink jersey. For the sake of entertainment, such a turnaround, or at least an attempt at one would be welcome. Carapaz is perhaps most likely, given he gave it a go yesterday but Del Toro has looked strong, but there is 8km of gravel to contend with on road up to the ski resort of Sestriere. For Yates how fitting would it be to come back to the climb that saw him suffer his career lowpoint and earn redemption? With three climbs to tackle there is plenty of scope for action from early in the stage, perhaps even the Corio the category four pitch up at 69m in.
