Even then we were looking at a three horse race between the leader Steven Kruijswijk, his nearest rival Vincenzo Nibali and the Colombian Esteban Chaves. The likes of Movistar's Alejandro Valverde and Andrey Amador, as well as Rafal Majka of Tinkoff were more than three minutes adrift with their hopes fading fast. The big question was whether Kruijswijk could hold his superb form over a couple of difficult days, with Niblai surely set to step up his game, and how the rest might go about trying to wear him down?
Today, with Sunday's mountain time-trial and a leg busting short-mountain stage to shake the riders awake after a day off, completed, Kruijswijk appears a man in complete control, leading Chaves by 3min. Nibali on the other hand has capitulated and now sits a distant 4th at 4min 43sec behind the Dutchman.
So what changed?
Well, in many ways nothing. Kruijswijk has not faded, in fact he has only gotten stronger. He blew away his rivals on the mountain time-trial, albeit finishing second to the relatively unknown Alexander Foliforov but putting 23sec into Valverde in 3rd with Nibali having a nightmare climb that seen him having to change bikes after a mechanical incident before getting upset with fans encroaching on his suffering on the later part of the climb. The Ironic that it would be the Italian hopeful that would have issues with the fans; long gone then are the day when Laurent Fignon or Stephen Roche would find the fans trying to hamper their progress towards beating the respective Italian hero of the time. Nibali came in 25th, 2min 10sec behind Kruijswijk. A staggering loss over a 10.8km time-trial, of which the first two kilometres were flat.
The belief then was that Nibali, down to third overall but still within three minutes (with Chaves at 2min 12sec) would go on a serious offensive after the rest day. The five men behind Kruijswijk and all within two and a half minutes of him, would take turns attacking and try to loosen the Dutchmans thus far firm grip on the pink jersey before worrying about racing one another. And yesterday's short 132km stage 16 from Bressanone to Brixen-Andalo looked the ideal setting to start.
These short mountain stages have proven brilliant to watch in recent years. The racing goes from the gun, the attacks come early and, when it happens off the back of a rest day, there's so much scope for unpredictability.
And everything started off going to plan. The attacks came early on the first big climb of the Passo Della Mendola: Kruijswijk was quickly isolated from his LottoNL-Jumbo team, Chaves missed the split over the top and the GC group was soon down to a dozen men with more than 60km still to race. Nibali and Valverde were in discussion with one another, plotting their next move, and licking their chops at blowing this race wide open.
But no sooner had we begun to anticipate what damage might be done on the penultimate climb, when Nibali himself began to look fragile. Kruisjwijk was the man reacting best to attacks and on one such move, Nibali lost the wheel and the gap began to open. Soon, he was gone; the Shark's Giro was hanging by a hook.
One man who was enjoying this kind of stage was Valverde. Kruijswijk wasn't cracking, but Chaves was 30sec off the back and Nibali was going further back and the Spaniard was sensing a move into a podium position. Ilnur Zakarin had gone with them and the three forged ahead up the final ramp to the finish, working either one another to put time into the rest and then fight out the bonus seconds on the line.
The big loser was Nibali. He limped home 1min 47sec down with fellow Italian Domenico Pozzovivo. Chaves limited his losses well coming in at 42sec. After the stage the Orica-GreenEdge rider confirmed that it wasn't his legs that cost him, but rather his bad positioning as he missed that early move. This was born out by the times taken up the hard Fal Della Paganella climb when Chaves was chasing; he was quickest by some margin.
As for the winner...that was Valverde. He always would on that kind of stage, though did so with Kruijswijk glued to his wheel.
For years Valverde avoided racing on Italian soil after Italian investigators got hold of blood bags they believed belonged to him from the Operation Puerto scandal in 2006. That was until the 2008 Tour de France crossed into Italy. Despite rumours that he might climb off his bike at the border, the Spaniard went with the race and at last the Italians had a sample from their man with which to make case. In time they did and he was issued a ban from which he has since served and returned to winning ways; better than ever some might say.
So here he was yesterday, ten years to the very day since the story of the Operation Puerto investigation in Spain broke to the cycling world for the first time, leading Valverde to stay away from the Giro for so long before the Italians, of all people, brought him down, with his arms in the air winning his first ever stage of the Giro.
Cycling is a funny old sport sometimes.
General classification after stage 16:
| 1. Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) 2. Esteban Chaves (Orica GreenEdge) 3. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) 4. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) 5. Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) 6. Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) 7. Bob Jungels (Etixx - Quick Step) 8. Andrey Amador (Movistar) 9. Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R La Mondiale) 10. Kanstantsin Siutsou (Dimension Data) |
in 63h 40' 10"
@ 3' 00" @ 3' 23" @ 4' 43" @ 4' 50" @ 5' 34" @ 7' 57" @ 8' 53" @ 10' 05" @ 11' 03" |
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Rider of the week:
Bob Jungels was on to win this about halfway through the week but I couldn't overlook the performance of Steven Kruijswijk in the hills, especially that mountain time-trial as he destroyed his rivals and moved comfortably into the overall lead with a week to go.
