Giro d'Italia (st. 11)

Herrada, Antón, Castroviejo finish with Quintana in reduced, 40-man bunch behind Rogers (TCS) in Savona. Malori completes heroic ride, full of abrasions after early crash

One of the biggest favourites for the 42km individual time trial from Barbaresco to Barolo set to sort out the Giro d’Italia GC on Thursday, Adriano Malori gave at the same time a big scare and a big example of courage for Movistar Team on stage eleven -one of the longest in this year’s race, over 249km between Collecchio and Savona-, and maybe the whole Corsa Rosa. The Italian crashed into a ditch together with some other riders during the downhill of the Passo delle Cento Croci (Cat-2), first difficulty of a day always ridden with huge pace -finishing almost thirty minutes ahead of schedule- and continuous attacks and situation changes.

In pain and full of bruises in his right hand side, the Italian rider got back on his back, made it to the bunch, worked as he uses to for Nairo Quintana before the Naso di Gatto (Cat-2), the hardest ascent with 28k from the finish, and later drop into the ‘autobus’, finishing hurt but calm after a day he can remember with pride only by having made it to the finish.

Ahead of him, the main favourites reeled back -following a big push from Androni, one of the teams not having any members into a 14-rider early break following a 23-man move that featured José Herrada- the attackers in the decisive climb, the bunch strung out to a mere fourty units where four Blues offered the best collective performance so far in this Giro for Nairo Quintana. Herrada himself, Jonathan Castroviejo and Igor Antón accompanied the Colombian all the way to the finish; he sits now in 8th overall before a trascendental ITT, where he will give his everything to limit losses to pink jersey Cadel Evans (BMC).