2017 Giro d'Italia Stage 16 Results & Recap
Stage 16 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
Nibali king of queen stage
Dumoulin loses valuable time after emergency nature break
Tom Dumoulin was looking worse for wear after a dramatic queen stage at the 100th edition of the Giro D’italia. The maglia rosa made an emergency “comfort” break before the start of the last climb that caused him to lose time on his main rivals. The stage was won by Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida).
This is the seventh stage win for Nibali at the Giro, seven years and one day since his first one, in Asolo in 2010.
Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) clawed his way over the line to save a 31 second buffer to his overall lead, challenged by Nairo Quintana (Movistar). Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) moved up to third place, 1 minute and 12 seconds back.
“I lost a lot of time. It was terrible. I had to stop and that’s it. I can understand because Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) was in front, but it’s s**t.”
When asked if he expected the peloton to wait, he quickly said he wasn’t expecting anything.
“This is not what I was hoping for,” Dumoulin said. “I had good legs but the problem has nothing to do with it. I’m still in but not with the lead I was hoping for I don’t think it was necessary to lose two minutes today.”
The race started in a similar way the previous stage, fast and frenetic. The peloton refused to let anyone up the road until a massive break of around 25 riders got itself off the front, but were brought back as the road turned upward on Motirolo.
Another large group established itself on the climb, this time squeaking out 1 minute and 30 second advantage by the time they saw the KOM line. The group contained: Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Pierre Rolland, Michael Woods and Joe Dombrowski (Cannondale-Drapac), Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo), Mikel Landa, Philip Deignan, Sebastian Henao, and Vasil Kiryienka (Team SKY); Laurens Ten Dam (Team Sunweb); Rui Costa and Edward Ravasi (UAE Team Emirates); Igor Anton, Natnael Berhane and blue jersey wearer Omar Fraile (Dimension Data); Pello Bilbao and Manuel Senni (BMC Racing); Jan Hirt and Felix Grosschartner (CCC Sprandi Polkowice); José Mendes (Bora-Hansgrohe); Alexander Foliforov (Gazprom-Rusvelo); Andrey Amador; José Herrada, and Gorka Izagirre (Movistar) and Laurens De Plus (Quick-Step Floors).
The gap, driven up by Kiryienka, was more than three minutes when the leaders reached Stelvio while Trek-Segafredo and FDJ raised the place in the pink jersey group.
Only eight riders remained in the front group at the top of Stelvio and Landa was the first over the top, claiming the Cima Coppi award.
Landa and Amador pulled away from the reduced breakaway on the descent toward Umbrail gaining a max of 20 seconds before Kruiswijk bridged across with Anacona, Hirt, Deignan and Anton.
Next to attack was Kriuswijk, while two minutes back in the pink jersey group, Dumoulin took a sudden turn for the roadside to take care of what seemed to be an urgent call to nature.
His GC rivals took the confusing opportunity to attack. Zakarin upped the pace then Franco Pellizotti went to the front and drilled the tempo while Landa was the solo rider at the front of the race.
Then Nibali attacked with 25 km to go and only Quintana, Pozzovivo and Zakarin could respond. The four came very close to Landa’s lead at the top of Umbrail pass while Dumoulin went into time trial mode more than two minutes back.
On the descent, Nibali dropped his three chase compains and went off in pursuit of Landa, who he caught with 10 kilometers to go.
The duo worked together until the final turn to the finish in Bormio and Nibali’s line into the corner bested the Spaniard to take the win. Dumoulin came across the line with just enough time to keep the maglia rosa.
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