Giro de Italia (st. 17)

Viviani (QST) claims fourth stage win after day full of attacks -covered at nearly 46kph average-, with Carapaz and Movistar Team still within best ten overall prior to Alps' decisive trio.

Italian Elia Viviani (QST) took Wednesday’s victory on stage 17 of the 2018 Giro d’Italia, a rolling course -with a flatter finish- of 150 kilometers from the lakeside Riva del Garda to the wineyards around Iseo. The day’s racing never saw a breakaway building more than two minutes’ distance, the opening two third of the race turned into a succession of attacks with seemingly no end.

Rubén Fernández and Dayer Quintana were the Movistar Team riders most insistently involved in following the moves. The latter of those, brought down already by the sprinters’ teams like Bora or LottoNLJumbo, was caught with 10km remaining. Richard Carapaz and Carlos Betancur, always into a good position in the bunch, had no troubles to preserve their respective 9th and 14th places overall. Briton Simon Yates (MTS) stayed in pink.

The ‘Corsa Rosa’ will now head towards a decisive trio of Alpine stages starting on Thursday, with ferocious mountains kicking off with the climb to Pratonevoso (Cat-1; 14km at nearly 7%). It will mark the end of a sole climb’s stage 18, 196km from Abbiategrasso with an almost entirely flat course before the bottom of the ascent.

Picture (c): Luca Bettini + Dario Belingheri / BettiniPhoto.net