2017 Giro d'Italia Stage 12 Results & Recap
Stage 12 of the 2017 Giro d'Italia is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Gaviria takes this 3rd Giro stage
A three rider break went from kilometer zero and it wasn’t until six kilometers to go that they were completely mopped up. Quick Step Floors went to the front and lead their super sprinter Fernando Gaviria took the stage win, his third of the Giro
Today was the longest stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia. Naturally, an early break was expected and we weren’t disappointed. Not long after the flag dropped two riders broke away, Sergey Firsanov (Gazprom-Rusvelo) and Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates) broke away. Soon Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF) bridged to the duo and the now three strong break quickly gained seven minutes on an uninterested main group.
On the first climb of the day, the category 2 Colla di Casaglia, the three still had a lead of around seven minutes.
Rolling over the top of the Colla di Casaglia, Firsanov grabbed an uncontested King of the Mountain points of the day. However, their lead started to drop from seven minutes on the descent to four minutes and 46 seconds by the time they reached the bottom.
In anticipation of a group sprint, Orica-Scott was at the front for Caleb Ewan who told the press before the stage, "There were really hard days, now I'm feel tired. But today is gonna be a sprint and I'll be there."
For Sunweb this break took the pressure off of them as the three up the road were no threat to their race leader Tom Dumoulin.
On the final climb of the day, the Valico Appenninico, a 10 kilometer ascent Maestri took the KOM again. For Omar Fraile, yesterday’s stage winner, sat in second place in the KOM competition so the Dimension Data rider wanted the point. On this second climb of the day, Fraile was able to grab points to overtake Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates).
As the break away got onto the motorway their gap started to grow again. The peloton wasn’t that interested in catching the break when they still had over 60 miles remaining in the stage. So the gap bounced between five and a little over six minute advantage. Leading the peloton Lotto Soudal, Quick Step Floors, and Orca Scott were at the front keeping the pace steady.
With 50 kilometers remaining in the stage the gap between the break and the peloton was once again reduced in 3:30 and there was no way that the trio were staying away.
With 35 kilometers to go the peloton woke up and accelerated to slightly over 50 kilometers an hour, slicing into the break’s lead like a hot knife through butter. The gap that at one point had swelled to over five minutes a few kilometers ago was barely over two. The reason for the increase in speed was the sprinter’s teams were getting set up for the inevitable sprint finish into Reggio Emilia.
As the break entered the city of Modena the time was cut even more to one minute and 18 seconds. The technical nature of riding through a city kept the time gap constant as the riders had to negotiate roundabouts and other road furniture.
With the city of Modena behind them the peloton slipped into a another gear riding at over 55 kilometers per hour. The result was with 20 kilometers to go the gap was under a minute.
With 15 kilometers remaining Sergey Firsanov and Marco Marcato were dropped by Maestri. The Bardiani-CSF rider most have decided that he still had a chance or wanted to get a little more TV time for his sponsors as he had only a 20 second lead.
With six kilometers remaining Maestri was caught and the battle of the sprint trains began. Quick Step, Lotto-Soudal, Orca-Scott, and even Movistar jostled for an ideal position.
With 350 meters to go in the stage the course made a sweeping turn and the Quick Step Floors team was leading out the current points leader Fernando Gaviria. The Argentine rider kicked hard and took the stage win, his third of this year’s Giro. He has a firm grip on the purple jersey and it looks like he’ll take it to Milan.
Tom Dumoulin and the rest of his rivals crossed the line safely with no change in the general classification.
Tomorrow’s stage 13 is flat and 167 kilometers long. The organizers rank this another one star stage and is designed for the sprinters.
Get our full coverage of the Giro d'Italia and every race we cover with our mobile app! The apps have over 100 additional exclusive features, including our award-winning Time Machine feature that lets you pause/rewind/replay the entire app to sync with delayed race video, integrated Fantasy Cycling, push notifications, an integrated news feed, live GPS tracking, world-class commentary, and our animated interactive maps and profiles.
