The Stage
Today’s stage was a long one. At 219 km in length it’s the second longest in terms of distance, but with 1,300 meters more in climbing than the longest stage (stage 6) this stage definitely felt much longer as a viewer (let alone a racer!) Despite this, the riders were incredibly fast, taking only 15 more minutes to finish the stage than they took for stage 6. And, after 5 hours and 15 minutes of racing, Carlos Verona, a Spanish rider on Lidl-Trek, won the stage from the breakaway and after 40 km of going solo. It’s hard to do justice to this win. A very hard-earned victory for Verona, and only his 2nd stage win in over a decade in professional cycling as he primarily serves a support rider for other team leaders, and another feather in Lidl-Trek’s cap this Giro. They’ve grabbed six stage wins, but this one had to feel particularly good given their GC contender, Italian rider Giulio Ciccone had to abandon the race after yesterday’s crash.
Not only was the stage long with 3,900 meters of climbing total, it featured the longest climb in this year’s Giro: Monte Grappa. The climb was 21 km long and had an average gradient of 5.7 percent. So while it wasn’t the steepest climb, it took a long time for the riders to make their way up. While there were attacks on the climb, and this mountain helped the solidify the breakaway, the most memorable moment of Monte Grappa was when a fan ran along the peloton with a taxidermied fox. Derek Gee, a Canadian rider on team Israel-Premier Tech gave the fox a little head skritch-skratch. And who knows, maybe it was a touch of good luck because by the end of the stage Gee had moved up to 5th on the General Classification.
The GC
However, the big news of the day was Primož Roglič, the pre-race favorite to win overall, dropped to 10th after getting dropped during attacks on the final categorized climb of the day. Roglič lost 1 minute 30 seconds to del Toro today and sits nearly 4 minutes down overall. However, this year’s Giro has over 50,000 meters of climbing, and nearly half of that climbing is coming up in this final week. So it’s too early to completely write off Roglič.
I’ll resist editorializing too much on the UAE Emirates dilemma of having two riders in 1st and 3rd, but I will say personally, as a Latina, I’m rooting for del Toro! Interestingly, Latin Americans has claim to three Giro victories; Nairo Quintana (Columbia), Richard Carapaz (Ecuador), and Egan Bernal (Colombia) have all won the Giro in the past and are all racing in this year’s edition. It would be great to see a fourth Latin American added to the list of Giro d’Italia winners. Carapaz is also well positioned in 4th, and Bernal sits in 8th, so overall some good representation.
The Dish
The Giro traveled through Veneto again today, finishing in Asiago. The area is known for their dairy production, so something featuring Asiago cheese would have been a good idea. But, I was tired today, and even more so after a bike ride in the morning. So I was really lazy when it came to my dish for the day. And I would say the results mirrored my effort. I made a lemon crumble. It was like a slightly worse version of the shortbread cookies I made for stage 11. I may have overbaked it slightly, or maybe it needed more butter. Either way, I don’t think I’m adding this recipe into the rotation.
I’m hoping I recharge enough on tomorrow’s rest day to really do justice to this final week of racing. Thanks for reading, and until Tuesday!