Almeida down from the tower of the Menadòr

On the climb to Lavarone, the Portuguese gave up over a minute, Carapaz, Hindley and Landa secure the podium: the fight for the squad on the last mountains

LAVARONE. Uncontaminated. Take a moment through the woods of the Val di Cimbra and summarize everything with this noun. To get there, however, at over a thousand altitude of the plateau there is a climb whose name says it all: Menadòr. That road, carved into the rock and used by the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserjagers to go and fight against the Italians in the Great War, has decided a piece of the Giro d’Italia.

Because it’s long, almost 8km, tough, almost 10 percent incline, with those wonderful hairpin bends. There, barring sensational collapses, the podium of the Giro d’Italia took shape: Richard Carapaz (Ineos), Jai Hindley (Bora), always glued at 3 “from the Ecuadorian, Mikel Landawho contributed greatly to the golden day of his Bahrain Victorious, who won the Lavarone stage with the young Colombian Santiago Buitrago, but in the end he still lost 6 seconds from the other two.

Here is the podium, because now the three, after a week of uphill efforts, have managed to break the Portuguese indomitable by more than a minute. João Almeida (Uae), to which the hard ramps of the Menador have gone indigestible. Now the cronoman is at 1’54 ”, already too much to dream of sensational reversals in the final part of 17 km against the clock in Verona. And with the dolomitic stage obstacle to be overcome first.

It will therefore be a three-way battle. Carapaz is fast, he made the sprint in Lavarone showing power and detaching Landa by 6 ”. “It was tough, but there are also two tough stages to go,” he said. Hindley? Pedal agile, he does not detach himself from the other two. We have the feeling at times that he has even more when the road climbs.

Land? Yesterday he was able to count on a sumptuous Bahrain. Mandate, as mentioned. Buitrago to play the stage successfully, a tough guy like the Dutchman Wout Poels, not surprisingly king of Liège 2016, piloted Landa uphill. In short, the Basque player is at 1’05 “but he has a strong team and legs to try. Curiosity the rampant ds of Bahrain and Bora, Franco Pellizotti ed Enrico Gasparotto they are from Friuli, former teammates and also very friends: watch out for alliances.
The fight ahead for the stage was spectacular. Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin) from the walls of Flanders, for that champion he is, also found himself battling on the Menador. He overtook the other Dutchman Gijs Leem trip (Jumbo) in turn overtaken by the Colombian Buitrago, who also crashed in the race and in tears on Sunday in Cogne for having lost from Giulio Ciccone. In common with the rival the age.
With the veterans Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) yesterday slipped behind by a couple of minutes, and Domenico Pozzovivo (Intermarchè) even further back 12 minutes, where are the young Italians?
Today last sprint of the Giro: Borgo Valsugana-Treviso. 152 km, before the mountains-truth. To put some order on that virtual podium decided by the Menador.

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