Standings after week 2
General classification:
- Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE)
- Ayuso (🇪🇸 UAE) at 1’13’’
- Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrain) at 1’30’’
- Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) at 1’40’’
- Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) at 1’41’’
- S. Yates (🇬🇧 Visma) at 1’42’’
- Bernal (🇨🇴 Ineos) at 1’57’’
- McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE) at 1’59’’
- A. Yates (🇬🇧 UAE) at 2’01’’
- Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora) at 2’25’’
Mountain classification:
- Fortunato (🇮🇹 Astana) 98 pts
- Ayuso (🇪🇸 UAE) 50
- Double (🇬🇧 Jayco) 36
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 32
- Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) 25
Points classification:
- Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) 153 pts
- Tonelli (🇮🇹 Polti) 59
- Kooij (🇳🇱 Visma) 55
- Van Uden (🇳🇱 Picnic) 50
- Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) 43
Intermediary sprints:
- Tonellii (🇮🇹 Polti) 59 pts
- Van der Hoorn (🇳🇱 Intermarché) 34
- Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) 31
- De Bondt (🇧🇪 Decathlon) 29
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 26
Breakaways:
- Tonellii (🇮🇹 Polti) 368 km
- Van der Hoorn (🇳🇱 Intermarché) 285
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 278
Redbull KM:
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 30 pts
- Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) 23
- Tonellii (🇮🇹 Polti) 19
Teams:
- UAE
- Lidl-Trek at 12’15’’
- Visma at 12’49’
- Ineos, Astana & Bahrain at 15-16 mn
Stage 13: Rodigo – Vicenza, 180 km (Friday 23, dep. 12:55-13:05, ETA 17:00-17:25)
A stage for punchers; perhaps sprinters-punchers.
Stage with light difficulties, 50 points to the winner.
The 3 km rule doesn’t apply.
Delays: 9% if ≤ 37 km/h; 10% if ≤ 41 km/h; 11% otherwise). Expected average speeds: 42 km/h ⇒ 28’23’‘, 44 km/h ⇒ 27’04’‘, 46 km/h ⇒ 25’44’'.
Pedersen looks like a good candidate for this stage and the following.
No attack right at the start, but after a few miles a group of 9 broke away, then Visma hunted those, like Soudal riders, who wanted to join the breakaway.
Germani (🇮🇹 FDJ) stayed a long time ahead of the breakaway, and when he was about to get caught, Scaroni (🇮🇹 Astana) joined him from the peloton. They only were caught in the climb of the time bonus sprint, 10 km from the finish line, at the bottom for Germani, after the top for Scaroni.
(In the peloton, there had been a strong acceleration by Ineos in the main climb of the day 40-50 km from the line, which caused several splits, in which Pedersen and Van Aert were caught. But the race calmed down as it as reaching the top, and most splits regrouped.)
Then Bardet (🇫🇷 Picnic) left in the descent after the time bonus sprint; he was soon caught up by Vacek (🇨🇿 Lidl-Trek) tanks to a split caused by another Lidl-Trek rider at the front of the peloton. They (well, mostly Vacek) managed to hold the peloton at bay on the flat until the final climb, but it consumed all their strength and they both soon blew up as this climb started.
A strong pace was lead, prominently by Alpecin who hadn’t noticed that Groves had dropped! When the final ramp began 200-250 m before the line, Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) attacked first, Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) took his wheel, and Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) who was a bit better placed followed him. The position remained so, with a small gap between Van Aert and Del Toro and a bit larger gap between the Mexican and the rest. The rest was surprising lead by Rochas (🇫🇷 FDJ), 4th before Roglitch and all.
NB: Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) let Ayuso (🇪🇸 UAE) pass ahead of him at the time bonus sprint 10 km from the line, but as he got the time bonus at the end, overall he gained 2 seconds over his leader 😀
4 victories for Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek), and a good chance for a 5th one tomorrow again.
Good stage, interesting last 50 km with events at various levels of the race.
Thank you for writing such great descriptions, I don’t have much time to watch cycling these days so it’s appreciated!
Thanks! Well, my descriptions are not gospel either. I mean, it is a selection of a few facts I recall, and there are my own biases in selecting and reporting; also I generally don’t stay in front of TV all along (and some days I am in front of the TV but I start snoring) so there are bits I may have missed, and sometimes those bits could shine a different light on later events. Ah, and I noticed I sometimes recall things in the wrong chronological order 😆