Summary: Giro d’Italia 2019 – Stage 16

Giulio Ciccone won his second Giro d'Italia stage after his victory in 2016, Richard Carapaz remains in pink and VIncenzo Nibali jumped up to the second place in the General Classification.

A massive breakaway group established early on this rainy day. It was a mixed bunch with climbers and breakaway specialists, and teammates of the GC-riders.

Joe Dombrowski (EF Education First), Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) Fausto Masnada (Androni-Giocattoli), Mattia Cattaneo (Androni-Giocattoli), Damiano Caruso (Bahrin-Merida), Jan Hirt (Astana), Andre Amador (Movistar), Pello Bilbao (Astana), Francois Bidard (AG2R La Mondiale), Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), Jai Hindley (Sunweb), Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma), Davide Villella (Astana), Lukasz Owsian (CCC Team), Christopher Juul Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott), Antonio Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Francisco Ventoso (CCC Team), Nate Brown (EF Education First), Michael Schwarzmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Mikkel Honoré (Deceuninck-QuickStep)

They had az advantage around 5 minutes mostly.

As it was expected, the real battle started with the Mortirolo. Giulio Ciccone, Mikel Nieve, Jan Hirt and Damiano Caruso formed the new leader group. Nieve dropped later and Caruso lost a few times the connection either, but he could come back again and again. But at the top of the Mortirolo there were only two riders top: Ciccone and Hirt, and it remained till the end of the stage, which was won by Giulio Ciccone. He rides a fantastic Giro d'Italia.

There were another breakaway riders between the leading duo and the pink jersey group, but at the end of the day only one survived: Fausto Masnada. He finished 3rd. Not only Ciccone's performance is excellent at this year's Giro, but Masnada can be proud his results either.

http://en.tourazzunkegyutt.com/results/giro-ditalia-2019-stage-16-results/

A plot against Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) was the first impressive move by the GC-riders. Movistar, Bahrain-Merida and Mitchelton-SCOTT dropped the main rival rider. The GC-favourites still have fear of the Slovenian because of his ITT skills, which will play a significant role at the last stage of the race at Sunday.

Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) attacked with 34 km to go, only Hugh Carthy (Team EF) could join him at first. Nibali later got a brotherly help. Literally. Antoni dropped from the break and accompanied Vincenzo for a while.

Nibali and Carthy were caught before the top of Mortirolo by pink rider Richard Carapaz and Mikel Landa (Movistar), meanwhile Miguel Angel Lopez and his teammate from the break, Pello Bilbao tried to distance from this duo.

Primoz Roglic, Simon Yates (Mitchelton-SCOTT) and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) chased them, but the gap was mostly one and a half minutes between these two groups.

At the end of the day Carapaz saved the pink jersey, Nibali jumped up to the second position in the General Classification.

http://en.tourazzunkegyutt.com/results/giro-ditalia-2019-general-classification-after-stage-16/