Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) won the rain-lashed 16th stage of the Giro d’Italia on Tuesday as Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) lost 1min 20sec to his main rivals.
Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) sparked a highly aggressive day of racing when attacking from distance on Passo del Mortirolo and while he was unable to drop race leader Richard Carapaz (Movistar), Roglic, isolated from his teammates, was no match for the attack.
“This Giro isn’t over yet, anything can happen,” Roglic warned after the stage.
Nibali launched his assault on the day’s final challenging climb, some 8km from the summit, which he crossed around 90sec ahead of Roglic.
Carapaz, aided by Mikel Landa, caught Nibali before the summit of Mortirolo and formed the group that powered over the final rolling kilometres in blustery rain.
“To beat Carapaz I’ll have to work out a new plan,” Nibali said afterwards. “Today we worked together to take out Roglic.”
Carapaz said he was feeling relaxed, now that Roglic had finally let go after a long struggle.
“This was a perfect day for us, we did very well and we can relax a bit now,” he said.
Ahead of them was the day’s escaping pair of eventual winner Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) and the man he beat to the line, Jan Hirt (Astana), who finished 1min 41sec ahead of Nibali’s group.
Some three minutes off the pace were Simon Yates and Bauke Mollema who also lost ground on the mountainous run as they crossed the line with Roglic.
Jumbo-Visma’s directeur sportif Addy Engels admitted his rider Roglic had suffered on Tuesday.
“This time you saw a difference in level between Roglic and riders like Nibali, Carapaz and Landa. When they went, he was unable to follow,” Engels admitted. “And there’s more climbing to come.”
Nibali thereby moves up to second place 1min 47sec behind Carapaz with Roglic at 2min 09sec in third and Landa fourth at 3min 15sec.
Stage winner Ciccone was seen shivering after the race and had stuffed newspapers into his shirt on the descent of the main climb.
“I couldn’t put my top on at the Mortirolo. The sleeves were too narrow, and my gloves were wet,” said a smiling Ciccone.
Wednesday’s run offers relative respite to the peloton as there are no real mountains to climb even if there is very little flat terrain on the 181km run near the Austrian border that finishes in a 5km ascent.
Giro d’Italia 2019 – stage 16 results (Lovere – Ponte di Legno):
| 1 | Giulio Ciccone (Ita) Trek-Segafredo | 5:36:24 |
| 2 | Jan Hirt (Astana) | ,, |
| 3 | Fausto Masnada (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) | +01’20” |
| 4 | Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) | +01’41” |
| 5 | Hugh Carthy (EF Education First) | ,, |
| 6 | Richard Carapaz (Movistar) | ,, |
| 7 | Mikel Landa (Movistar) | ,, |
| 8 | Joe Dombrowski (EF Education First) | ,, |
| 9 | Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida) | +01’49” |
| 10 | Mattia Cattaneo (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) | +02’03” |
| 11 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | ,, |
| 12 | Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) | +03’03” |
| 13 | Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 14 | Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 15 | Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 16 | Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos) | +03’44” |
| 17 | Lucas Hamilton (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 18 | Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) | ,, |
| 19 | Jai Hindley (Team Sunweb) | +04’02” |
| 20 | Davide Formolo (Bora-hansgrohe) | +04’46” |
Giro d’Italia 2019 – general classification after stage 16:
| 1 | Richard Carapaz (Movistar) | 70:02:05 |
| 2 | Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) | +01’47” |
| 3 | Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) | +02’09” |
| 4 | Mikel Landa (Movistar) | +03’15” |
| 5 | Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) | +05’00” |
| 6 | Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe) | +05’40” |
| 7 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | +06’17” |
| 8 | Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | +06’46” |
| 9 | Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos) | +07’51” |
| 10 | Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) | +08’06” |
| 11 | Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) | +10’02” |
| 12 | Davide Formolo (Bora-hansgrohe) | +11’51” |
| 13 | Hugh Carthy (EF Education First) | +14’38” |
| 14 | Joe Dombrowski (EF Education First) | +14’52” |
| 15 | Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) | +18’21” |
| 16 | Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) | +23’46” |
| 17 | Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott) | +24’50” |
| 18 | Fausto Masnada (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) | +26’25” |
| 19 | Victor de la Parte (CCC) | +27’46” |
| 20 | Tanel Kangert (EF Education First) | +31’19” |
