This Saturday, the twentieth stage of the Giro d’Italia (2.UWT) showed the final battle between the GC riders in the Dolomites, with a finish on top of the Passo Fedaia.
The 164 kilometer stage also contained the Passo San Pellegrino and the Passo Pordoi, which was the highest point of this 105th edition with its summit at 2200 meter of altitude.
The climbers of the World Team, Jan Hirt and Domenico Pozzovivo, took the start in sixth and eighth position in the general classification and accompanied the maglia rosa group until the foot of the final climb.
It was on the ramps of this last difficulty (13km at 7.8%) that the favorites battled man against man, with the survivors from the breakaway racing for the stage win. Thanks to his fourteenth place in the stage, Jan Hirt did not only keep his eighth position in the classification, he also reduced the gap to the fifth place of Pello Bilbao to 12 seconds.
Without giving up, Domenico Pozzovivo stays in eight position of the general classification at the end of this stage. Tomorrow, the Giro will be concluded by an individual time trial of 17.4 kilometer around Verona which contains the Torricellla Massimiliana climb (4 km à 5.4%) halfway through the parcours.
« After being able to follow the best climbers during the first two weeks of the Giro, I was forced to limit the damage these last couple of days following my crash in the seventeenth stage. Everyone races on the limit during the final week of a Grand Tour, so it's not easy to recover from the consequences of a crash. Unfortunately, my feeling from before the crash never came back. I'm aware that it's part of the sport. But despite the pain in my back and my ribs, I never gave up the battle. It is in my nature to give everything to achieve a goal, even when it's not going according to plan. » « I'm proud that I managed to end this final mountain stage in eighth place in the general classification. But I stay focused for the time trial. I'm very motivated, because this discipline suits me. Our mechanics did a fantastic effort to make my bike as light as possible. Their devotion is precious, because the time trial is not entirely flat and each gramme counts. I'm now 17 kilometer away from a top ten in my favorite race, four years after my previous top ten! »
