Denmark’s two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard dominated the mountainous stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia to increase his overall lead in the pink jersey.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider unleashed a powerful attack with about 10km to go and rode away from his competitors, at times achieving speeds of 23km/h at gradients of 12%.
On a hot day in the Italian and Swiss Alps several riders lost time. Italy’s Giulio Ciccone became frustrated by the lack of lead he and his fellow breakaway riders had built up, launching a full drinks bottle back at his team helper through spectators on the side of the road.
Ciccone’s Lidl-Trek team-mate Derek Gee-West and other main contenders for the general classification such as Australia’s Michael Storer all started to lose ground to Vingegaard’s infernal pace, showing the overwhelming favourite for victory in Rome on Sunday is head and shoulders above the rest of the peloton.
In Cari in Switzerland, Vingegaard, after 113km of riding, finished one minute and nine seconds ahead of Austria’s Felix Gall of Decathlon-CMA CGM.
Gall finished two seconds ahead of Australia’s Jai Hindley of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, the 2022 Giro winner.
His Red Bull team-mate Giulio Pellizzari had been a joint contender for pink with Hindley but the Italian blew up on Tuesday’s climb, finishing more than 18 minutes behind.
The final week of the three-week Giro is infamous for the changing fortunes of riders who have taken a commanding lead into the remaining mountain stages, but no-one expects Vingegaard to suffer.
Vingegaard has been patient in taking control of the race, which had been led for nine stages by Portugal’s Afonso Eulalio of Bahrain-Victorious.
As is customary, 29-year-old Vingegaard kissed a sticker of his family on his handlebars as he crossed the line, and now leads by four minutes and three seconds overall, ahead of Gall.
The Netherlands’ Thymen Arensman of Netcompany Ineos Cycling is third, 24 seconds further back.
“My team-mates are very motivated for it,” said Vingegaard afterwards. “We wanted to win in the pink jersey, but it can also go wrong so we chose the first option to do it.
“I think it was a very hard climb – my team-mates did an amazing job. They pulled from the start and didn’t give the breakaway any chances.”