It might still be early in the 2019 Giro d’Italia but there’s been no shortage of drama in the race so far. We’ve seen Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) stamp his authority on the time trials, building a handy lead over his GC rivals. We’ve seen one of those rivals, Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb), crash out of the race just days after the start. We’ve seen the controversial relegation of Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) due to a wayward sprint. And we’ve watched Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) prove himself as one of the world’s premier sprinters.
We’ve also seen the riders get lashed by rain. Lots of rain.
The riders have just had their first rest day and after a couple of sprint stages, they’ll then head into the mountains. Roglic should take back pink at some point in the week ahead and from there it’s up to his rivals to challenge him whenever they can. Will be able to hold on? Or will he crack like Simon Yates last year?
We’ve got a thrilling 12 days’ racing ahead of us.
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- The 2019 Giro started with an 8.2km individual time trial. Primoz Roglic stormed around the course, putting time into everyone …
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- … and taking the first maglia rosa.
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- Stage 2 brought the first of several wet days in the opening week.
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- One of those days where watching from the couch is pretty appealing.
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- It dried up later in the day though …
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- … and Pascal Ackermann dashed to victory, taking his first Grand Tour stage win.
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- Caption contest: What is Luke Durbridge writing in his diary on the morning of stage 3?
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- Elia Viviani was first across the line in the stage 3 bunch sprint, but the race jury later decided that the Italian champion had deviated from his line.
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- Fernando Gaviria was elevated from second place but wasn’t happy about it.
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- A reduced group reached the uphill finish to stage 4 after a crash in the closing kilometres. A late dash from Richard Carapaz saw him hold off Caleb Ewan for the stage win.
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- Pre-race favourite and 2017 overall winner Tom Dumoulin crashed in the closing kilometres …
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- … and crossed the finish several minutes down with blood streaming from his leg.
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- Dumoulin started stage 5, but with the rain falling outside, he was in the teamcar before the end of the neural zone. It wasn’t the way he wanted his Giro to end.
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- Stage 5 ended with a 10km finishing circuit around Terracina. With heavy rain falling, GC times were awarded before the start of the final circuit. The sprinters still duked it out, of course, and it was Ackermann that won again.
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- Viviani wasn’t able to take his first (official) victory.
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- The southernmost stage of the 2019 Giro delivered drier weather and some stunning scenery.
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- Fausto Masnada and Valerio Conti escaped from breakaway late to contest stage 6.
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- Masnada took the win …
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- … while Conti moved into the maglia rosa.
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- Roglic crashed on the stage but wasn’t badly injured. He was happy to relinquish the overall lead, to reduce the stress for a few days.
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- The scenery on stage 7 was impressive too.
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- The winner came from the breakaway on stage 7 as well. On this occasion it was Pello Bilbao taking the chocolates.
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- Stage 8 saw the riders work their way along the Adriatic Sea.
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- Marco Frapporti and Damiano Cima led stage 8 but the race was destined to come back together for a reduced sprint.
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- After finishing second, third and fourth in the first week, Ewan finally got his victory on stage 8.
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- The rain was back on stage 9 for the second of three individual time trials.
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- Vincenzo Nibali put in a strong ride on the largely uphill course to finish fourth on the day.
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- Majka was 10 places further down the leaderboard, but worked just as hard.
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- Aussie TT champ Luke Durbridge was well off the pace, but his job this Giro is to ride for Simon Yates, not win stages.
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- Just as he was on stage 1, Roglic was clearly the strongest on stage 9. Only the UCI Hour Record holder Victor Campanaerts was able to get within a minute of the Slovenian.
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- Conti rode strongly enough to maintain his overall lead by 1:50 over Roglic. Twelve stages remain in the 2019 Giro d’Italia.
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