Giro Week 3

Stage 15 saw Carlos Verona taking a stage win 29 seconds ahead of Del Toro and other GC favourites while Roglic and Pidcock finished further back and lost 1 minute 30 on GC. Lorenzo Fortunato was trying to gain as many points as he could in the KOM competition, taking 40 on the day at the top on Monte Grappa. The breakaway narrowly missed out on a win, Florian Stork came in 22 seconds behind the winner.

Stage 16 was a win for the breakaway and a 1-2 for XDS Astana Team, Christian Scaroni crossing ahead of Fortunato 55 seconds ahead of third place. Carapaz crossed in 4th gaining over a minute on the current GC leader but not coming close enough to place himself in the lead, still 31 seconds down. Simon Yates would also be gaining time but under a minute ensuring he remained in second place overall. There was no change in the KOM competition with Fortunato in the break collecting a further 124 over the four sprints. The stage saw Roglic and Tarling both abandon the race among other bringing the number of riders down to 164.

Isaac Del Toro was able to finally get a win on stage 17, 4 seconds ahead of Carapaz and 15 seconds ahead of Simon Yates switching up the order of the top three. Romain Bardet came second, narrowly missing out on the stage which would give him one in all three grand tours. There was no change to the leaders of any classification with Mads Pedersen winning the first sprint and Lorenzo Fortunato winning the fist KOM sprint.

Juan Ayuso was unable to finish stage 18 meaning UAE lost yet another rider, but there would be little change on GC. The stage was contested by a strong breakaway containing Mads Pedersen, Wout Van Aert and Kaden Groves. The win went to Nico Denz with a gap of 1:01 over the remainder of the breakaway. Christian Scaroni was in the breakaway on behalf of his teammate to ensure the KOM jersey did not leave the team.

Stage 19 was another chance to show how strong the top three on GC were with Carapaz and Del Toro being on even terms and gaining time on Simon Yates. The breakaway took another stage win, this time in the form of Nicholas Prodhomme who won three out of five KOM sprints, the competition had been all but won by the XDS Astana duo.

Simon Yates put in an amazing performance and left the rest of GC behind at the end of the stage, gaining 5:13 on Isaac Del Toro and taking the maglia rosa for himself, he did not win the stage itself and instead came third, the win went to Chris Harper who had been part of the early breakaway. Wout Van Aert played his part and after being past of the early break was joined by his teammate with 20km to go. Van Aert was not dropped from the group until 5.4km to go when Simon Yates took off, Van Aert finished 15th on stage 20.

The last stage was won by Olav Kooij meaning Visma Lease a Bike ended the Giro on a high. As a team they had three stage wins and had won the GC, they only finished third in the teams classification with UAE in first and Bahrain-Victorious in second after three weeks of racing. Isaac Del Toro finished second on the general classification after holding the jersey since stage 9 at the age of 21, UAE Team Emirates XRG also had riders in 9th, 12th and 13th. Egan Bernal was able to find a spot in the top 10, finishing 7th. Derek Gee was up in 4th after the three weeks, managing to stay out of trouble and creep up. Thomas Pidcock was perhaps out of position, he finished in 16th, 44:41 off of first.

Classification Winners:

General: Simon Yates

Points: Mads Pedersen

Youth: Isaac Del Toro

Mountains: Lorenzo Fortunato

Teams: UAE Team Emirates - XRG

Combativity: Wout Van Aert

List of Further Drop Outs:

(DNS Stage 15) Giulio Ciccone - Lidl Trek

(DNS Stage 16) Milan Fretin - Cofidis

(DNS Stage 16) Paul Magnier - Soudal Quick-Step

(DNF Stage 16) Joshua Tarling - INEOS Grenadiers

(DNF Stage 16) Alessio Martinelli - VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizane

(DNF Stage 16) Primoz Roglic - Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe

(DNF Stage 17) Luke Plapp - Team Jayco Alula

(DNF Stage 17) Jay Vine - UAE Team Emirates - XRG

(DNF Stage 18) Juan Ayuso - UAE Team Emirates - XRG

(DNF Stage 19) Alfonso Eulalio - Bahrain - Victorious

(DNF Stage 19) Marco Brenner - Tudor Pro Cycling Team

184 Riders Started Stage 1

159 Riders Finished Stage 21