2019 Giro d'Italia Stage 12 Results & Recap
Stage 12 of the 2019 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
Cesare Benedetti (Bora-hansgrohe) took his first professional victory today in Pinerolo after spending the day in the breakaway. The Italian beat out Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida) and Eddie Dunbar (Team Ineos) for the win.
Jan Polanc (UAE Emirates) took over the pink jersey from teammate Valerio Conti after spending the day in the large breakaway of 24 riders. Polanc starts tomorrow’s stage 4:07 over Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma). Conti is now third at 4:51 in arrears.
Today’s race was finally a reprieve from the flat sprint stages in the first week of the Giro d’Italia, with only one classified climb, but a doozy of one. The 158-km stage from Cuneo to Pinerolo featured the Montoso, 8.8 kilometres long and an average of 9.5 percent, which expected to shake up the race.
Because of the pending mountain ascent, it took longer than usual to solidify a breakway. After about 15 minutes, one finally got down the road including: Polanc, Dunbar, Brambilla, Caruso, Benedetti, Sutterlin, Boaro, Dario Cataldo (Astana), Enrico Gasparotto (Dimension Data), Jan Bakelants (Sunweb), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Marco Haller (Katusha-Alpecin), and Sean Bennett (EF Education First).
The gap continued to grow for the large break, while UAE Emirates moved to the front of the peloton to set the pace and eking out 15 minutes before the peloton started to wake up before the climb.
As predicted, the Montoso brought the fireworks and split up the breakaway and the chasing peloton.
Caruso accelerated on the steeper portion of the ascent, dropping all but Polanc, Dunbar, Brambilla, Cataldo and Capecchi.
Meanwhile, in the peloton, Mikel Landa and Miguel Angel Lopez took off to gain some time on the GC favorites. Sutterlin and Manuele Boaro (Astana) sat back and waiting for their teammates and helped them maintain their 30-second advantage on the GC group until the end of the stage.
On the descent, it was Brambilla, Dunbar and Capecchi who were left off the front in the closing kilometres of the race. Benedetti and Caruso joined on in the last few moments. Brambilla led out the sprint, however, it was Benedetti who took the win with Caruso second and Dunbar third.
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