ScoreboardSummary

Jhonatan Narváez secured a spectacular breakaway victory on a hectic eleventh stage of the Giro d'Italia, launching a decisive two-up push on the final uncategorised climb to distance the rest of the field. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider bested his final breakaway companion, Spanish climber Enric Mas of Movistar, on the technical run-in to Chiavari, crossing the line first after a perfectly timed final sprint. The 195-kilometre stage from Porcari to Chiavari had been highly anticipated as a day for the breakaway, which paradoxically made it incredibly difficult for one to form. Relentless attacking from the starting flag over the flatter Tuscan roads meant the peloton ruthlessly chased down every early move, and it took hours of high-speed racing for a definitive group of 17 escapees to finally establish a meaningful gap. The leading group eventually fragmented into an elite quintet over the late Ligurian climbs before Mas forced the issue inside the final 15 kilometres. Narváez e...

After yesterday's time trial, where Filippo Ganna destroyed the field to take his 7th time trial victory in the Giro d'Italia, equalling Eddy Merckx, Jonas Vingegaard took a big step towards overall victory by putting time into most of his closest competitors. Stage 11 is a different proposition entirely, one that feels destined for a breakaway victory. Stage 11 features many climbs, but none seem to be long and hard enough for a GC battle to commence, meaning if a breakaway with no threats to Afonso Eulalio's pink jersey gets up the road, they will probably just be allowed to take the victory, which sets us up for a stage for the likes of Jhonatan Narvaez, Ben Turner and the other guys who can win a sprint in a reduced bunch at the end of a tough day. For a guy like Turner, if he can get over the day's big climb, 9.9km at 6.2%, at the front of the race, he will fancy himself to hold the wheels on the final categorised climb and then out-sprint everyone for the win.  Bu...

After Jhonatan Narvaez's brilliant victory from the break yesterday, stage 9 promises to be another GC battle with Vingegaard and co looking to take the pink jersey away from Afonso Eulalio before the second rest day tomorrow. The stage from Cervia to Cornio Alle Scale is a typical Giro mountain stage, flat half of the stage up until the intermediate sprint, followed by an absolute brute of a finale where the road goes uphill for pretty much the final 68km, apart from a small descent in between the day's two categorised climbs, with the gradients just getting steeper and steeper the further into the climbs they get it promises to be a stage with massive time gaps between the GC favourites although the final climb is listed at 10.8km at just over 6% the final 3km average are over 10% with gradients of up to 15% at stages. This, in theory, could be a day for a breakaway if composed correctly, with no threats to GC up the road, as most of the uphill gradients are not severe, if a ...

Jhonatan Narváez secured a spectacular solo victory on a chaotic eighth stage of the Giro d'Italia, launching a decisive attack to ride the final 10 kilometres entirely alone. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider dropped his final breakaway companion, Norwegian champion Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility, on the brutal closing slopes into Fermo, crossing the line with a clear 32-second advantage. The 156-kilometre stage from Chieti to Fermo had been highly anticipated as a day for the breakaway, which paradoxically made it incredibly difficult for one to form. Relentless attacking from the starting flag meant the peloton ruthlessly chased down every early move, and it took until the halfway point of the race for a definitive group of escapees to finally establish a meaningful gap. Mikkel Bjerg did a mountain of work to set up the eventual victory for his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate before dropping back. Narváez then drove clear, and though Leknessund fought back bravely on a brief ...

After the first GC skirmish yesterday, the Giro heads away from the Apennine mountains and to the coast for a stage that is like a typical stage at Tirreno Adriatico, lots of short, sharp climbs in the finale, meaning who knows whether it's a stage for the breakaway, a GC battle or one for the Puncheurs. The first half of the stage is pretty much pan flat with the odd lump and bump at the beginning, but the stage really begins at the intermediate sprint where Magnier, Milan and co will sprint for points towards the Maglia Ciclamino if the breakaway doesn't hoover them all up but after the sprint there is virtually no flat roads at all with constant ups and downs which should provide great racing whether that is a GC battle or otherwise. The four categorised climbs are all very similar, not very long apart from the first one, which is 9.9km at 3.6%; the other three are shorter, all under 5km, but have steep sections within them. Expect the first attacks from the peloton to come ...

Jonas Vingegaard claimed victory in the longest stage at a grand tour in 5 years, and on top of one of the most famous mountains in Italy, but that is not the talking point, as the gaps to the rest of the GC contenders were much smaller than many feared before a wheel turned this morning. The break of the day featured 5 riders, the most notable rider of the five being Jonathan Milan, who got up the road so he could take maximum points at the intermediate sprint to close the gap to Paul Magnier in the battle for the Maglia Ciclamino. But other than the break, nothing much happened for the first 200km of the stage; the break maintained a gap of over 5 minutes and poor Timo Kielich sat at the front of the peloton with little to no help. Finally, the action began to begin in the run-in to Blockhaus as the gap to the breakaway disappeared from well over five minutes to two and a half by the time the climb started. In the early slopes, the peloton stayed in the status quo until David Piganzo...

After yesterday's hectic sprint finale, stage 7 is almost certainly to be the first stage with big time gaps between the GC favourites as the road goes uphill to a mountain top finish for the first time in this year's Giro. The first action of the stage will likely come at the intermediate sprint, where the sprinters who want to win the Maglia Ciclamino, like Magnier and Milan, will sprint to try and claim the points needed in that competition and after that the road immediately goes uphill with a fairly large uncategorised climb beginning with just over 100km to go on what is the longest stage of the giro so some of the sprinters may struggle to make the time cut if the peloton really go for it on the early slopes though this feels unlikely.  For a breakaway to succeed, they will need at least 5 minutes on the peloton coming into the bottom of the Blockhaus, so it feels really unlikely a break is allowed to stay away by Visma Lease-A-Bike and Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, with the ...

Another day of Giro action and another stage where a straightforward stage on paper causes chaos as Davide Ballerini beat Jasper Stuyven in a two-man sprint in what should have been a massive group sprint.  The day up until the final kilometre was, as expected, a small break formed, but they were never given a chance by the sprinters' teams; the gap never got over two minutes, and they were caught comfortably before the end, leading to a weird final twenty kilometres where the peloton was line a stern with no team wanting to take the lead so the peloton sat with each team in a line at 40km/h till the final 5km where finally the stage sprung into action.  The Unibet Rose Rockets dominated the front of the peloton in the run-in and were in the perfect position with Groenewegen in second position with just his leadout man in front of him going into the final hairpin corner before the long drag up to the line but 5 minutes before the riders arrived in Naples it started raining mak...

After the craziness of stage 5, stage 6 looks to be the most straightforward, but the finale is anything but straightforward with many twists, corners and a 4% gradient on cobbles over the final kilometre it should be one for the sprinters but the difficulty of the finale means some of the less powerful sprinters who are better at positioning and climbing than the Milans, Magniers and Groenewegens of the world will have this stage circled as a great chance for them. The first action of the day is almost certainly not going to come until the Red Bull kilometre with just under 30km to go if the break is brought back, expect GC rivals to sprint for the 6,4 and 2 bonus seconds on offer for first, second, and third and after that it is a fairly straighforward run into Naples on wide open roads up until the final km so positioning coming off these wider roads and into Naples is likely to prove critical in this stage.  The route turns off the main roads with roughly 750m to go, so at this...

In what on paper didn't seem like a stage that promised to deliver too much drama the Giro d'Italia was once again at its unpredictable best as Igor Arrieta took the stage despite crashing and also going the wrong way with 2km, somehow closing down a near 20-second gap to Afonso Eulalio in the final 2km to beat him in the sprint and take the first win of his career in quite inexplicable fashion. In torrential rain in southern Italy, the break of the day took a while to go, but when it did, it was a strong group comprising many really strong riders with Victor Campenaerts and yesterday's stage winner Jhonathan Narvaez up the road. Then the race just stayed fairly neutralised, with the gap to the peloton never really going above two and a half minutes over the first 140km of the stage. This changed in the run-in to the final climb of the day, where Igor Arrieta made his move, attacking off the front of the breakaway before the day's major climb even started. This allowed ...

After a crazy stage 4, where Jhonathan Narvaez won a massively reduced sprint to complete a very rapid turnaround from his stage 2 crash, and home hero Giulio Ciccone took the pink jersey with his third place stage 5, on paper looks like a much quieter stage with a breakaway being the favourites for the stage, but as shown yesterday if one team decides they really want to win the stage and keep the breakaway in check this stage could still diverge into a GC battle. Stage 5 contains two climbs, the first basically begins from kilometre 0, but is not very steep, so expect the peloton to remain intact till the final categorised climb of the day, which while it isnt that long at 6.6km it is very steep with an average of 9% and ramps up to 15% at stages so this could see GC attacks but with the finish being just under 50km from the top with lots of that downhill it feels unlikely to see a GC battle today unless the very heavy rainfall that has been forecast causes the race to fall into cauo...

After the chaos of yesterday, the Giro moves into stage 2 on an undulating terrain, which, if this stage were in week 2 or 3, would be a nailed-on stage for the breakaway, but with the pink jersey at stake, anything could happen. As shown by the route, the stage has three categorised climbs, the first two of which are not likely to feature any real drama, but the last 20km is where the stage comes into its own, with the Red Bull Kilometre leading into a 3km climb at 6%, which should see attacks too fast for the pure sprinters like Jonathan Milan to follow but could guys like Corbin Strong and Tobias Lund Andresen get over it in a reduced bunch but even if they survive the final categorised climb the final 3km is anything but simple with two cobbled sectors and ramps of up to 9% between them likely making too hard for the names above so the next group of riders likely to contest this are the puncheurs and classic specialists. Guys that could well win include Antonio Morgado (UAE team Em...

In what always promised to be a sprint finish turned into one, but stage 1 of the Giro definitely did not disappoint with breakaways, intermediate sprints, and a huge crash in the finale led to Paul Magnier winning his first stage of a grand tour, and at only 22, it promises to be the first of many for the young Frenchman.