Vingegaard takes Giro lead after 14th stage

PILA (Italy): Jonas Vingegaard took charge of the Giro d’Italia by winning Saturday’s key 14th stage, showing his power in the mountains to snatch the overall lead from Afonso Eulalio.

Already wearing the blue King of the Mountains jersey, Vingegaard will be in pink for the first time in his career on Sunday and the Visma-Lease a Bike rider is hot favourite to stay on top of the pile until the peloton rolls into Rome at the end of the month.

Vingegaard is bidding for a Giro-Tour de France double this year, and the two-time Tour winner is now likely to become just the eighth man to complete the Grand Tour triple crown after winning his third stage of this edition.

The Dane pushed his way to the summit finish in Pila, after 133 kilometres of punishing climbing, nearly three minutes ahead of Eulalio following a solo attack on the final ascent.

“Of the three (wins) this is the one I’ll remember most. We wanted to control the race and my teammates did a brilliant job all day,” said Vingegaard.

Austria’s Felix Gall was second on the day but 49 seconds behind Vingegaard, while Jai Hindley was dropped on the Pila climb and finished third, just under a minute off the pace.

Eulalio is still Vingegaard’s closest challenger for overall victory but is two minutes and 26 seconds behind in the overall standings and looking over his shoulder in his bid to hang onto a podium finish.

A stage which was packed full of tough climbs ended up being decided on the most intimidating of them all – the 16.6km drag to Pila.

Vingegaard’s Visma teammates led the peloton to the foot of that climb just over two minutes behind a break which had pushed ahead from early in the stage.

The peloton slowly closed that gap as Giulio Ciccone and Wout Poels burst out of the break with an attack, while Eulalio fell away under the intensity of Visma’s pace.

Ciccone tried to attack again just as Vingegaard, led out by teammate Davide Piganzoli, pushed to the front of the race.

Vingegaard then made his move without any of his rivals trying to follow.

“I barely needed to increase my speed because Piganzoli dropped everyone from my wheel,” added Vingegaard.

Jhonatan Narvaez, who has won three stages of this year’s Giro, took the points jersey from Paul Magnier after winning the intermediate sprint.

The UAE rider is on 131 points, just one ahead of France’s Magnier, who won two of the opening three stages in Bulgaria.

The general classification contenders will have two days to give their legs a relative break on Sunday and Monday, with the latter a rest day before a punishing and decisive final week.

Sunday’s stage, meanwhile, is an entirely flat run through the Po Valley between Voghera and Milan, 157km of riding which will be one of the last opportunities for the sprinters to take centre stage. – AFP

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المصدر: New Straits Times