ROME — Germany’s Nico Denz won the 12th stage of the Giro d’Italia for his first victory in a Grand Tour, while Geraint Thomas kept hold of the pink jersey as the race prepares to head into the mountains.
After a Giro d’Italia pockmarked by crashes, dreadful weather, sickness and abandonments, stage 12 from Bra to Rivoli offered some much-needed respite before the serious business kicks in again.
Denz, who rides for Bora-Hansgrohe, beat Toms Skujins and Sebastian Berwick at the end of the 185-kilometre (115-mile) hill leg from Bra to Rivoli in the Piedmont region.
And so they did, with the stage coming down to a three-way sprint eventually taken comfortably by Denz (Bora-Hansgrohe) – his first Grand Tour stage win.
Latvia’s Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) was second with Australian Sebastian Berwick (Israel-Premier Tech) sitting up before the line to cross in third.
Race leader Geraint Thomas finished several minutes back in the peloton along with the remaining GC contenders.
“I’m over the moon,” said Denz, who revealed he had long planned to win this stage that after a mass breakaway came down to a three up sprint in downtown Rivoli.
“I prepared that stage actually. I had it in my mind already before, but I also have quite a fast finish and that saved me in the end,” said Denz, racing his sixth Giro d’Italia.
The first stage win for Denz in his sixth Giro prompted the German to yell in joy after crossing the line and put his hands on his head as his eyes appeared to tear up.
All three riders were in a large breakaway that had to battle to escape at the beginning of the day.
The trio pulled away from its fellow escapees and had an advantage of more than eight minutes on the general classification group on the toughest part of the stage, a second-category climb 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the finish.
“The breakaway was definitely hard to get in, and then the hardest moment for me was the last climb, I was suffering so much and I barely made it over the top,” Denz said. “But getting there was also not so easy.
“When I made it over the last climb I used the downhill to recover. And on the bottom, I started to think, `yeah, I can make this actually.’ And then they didn’t attack me, so I just threw everything in and yeah, from there on I thought, `I can maybe do this.”‘
The rest of the breakaway rolled across the line two minutes, 20 seconds behind, around six minutes ahead of the GC contenders.
Thomas remained two seconds ahead of Primoz Roglic and 22 ahead of Joao Almeida.
“I would be happy with a podium spot, but the climbs suit me and yes I’m here to win, let’s see,” said Almeida, who rides for the same outfit as Tadej Pogacar.
There was a minute of silence before the start to honour those affected by the flooding in Emilia-Romagna.
It was a quieter day in the peloton after an eventful few days which saw pre-race favourite Remco Evenepeol withdraw after testing positive for the coronavirus and Tao Geoghegan Hart leave the race on a stretcher after a crash Wednesday.
Geoghegan Hart had been third in the overall standings, five seconds behind his Ineos Grenadiers teammate Thomas.
“It definitely changes how we race,” Thomas said. “When we had myself and him up there, that gave us two good options. Obviously, he’s not here anymore, so it’s a massive blow to the team. And he was going really well.
“But we’ve still got a good, strong unit here and we’ve had great morale from the start here, and hopefully we can just continue that.”
Discussion about this post