Pinerolo (Italy) (AFP)
Slovenia at the top of the Giro: Jan Polanc, new wearer of the pink jersey, and Primoz Roglic occupy the first two places after the 12th stage won Thursday at Pinerolo by the Italian Cesare Benedetti.
Splintered by the Aderlass doping case, including Milan Erzen, one of his key men who is suspected of having had dealings with Dr. Schmidt (at the center of a blood doping network), Slovenian cycling is on in front of the stage. For the worst and the best: Polanc, winner of two mountain stages in the past, has endorsed at 27 his first pink jersey.
"We had the perfect tactic," said the Slovenian, who applied the team game by mixing with the maxi-escaped 25 runners formed in the first fifteen minutes of racing. On arrival, he took the lead of the Giro to his Italian teammate Valerio Conti, dropped by the favorites on the steepest slopes.
The new wearer of the pink jersey now has more than 4 minutes ahead of Roglic, the first contender for the final victory. But the first pass of the Giro, the first climb classified in the first category since the departure of Bologna, paradoxically emphasized the isolation of the Slovenian rider / climber, very quickly without crew on the sunny slopes of Montoso.
The balance of the first skirmishes of this Giro? 28 seconds nibbled at the cost of a sustained effort by the Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez and Spaniard Mikel Landa, two climbers who lost a lot of time last Sunday in the time trial of San Marino. But beyond the numbers, the Italian Vincenzo Nibali and the Polish Rafal Majka produced the best impression.
Nibali, very leggy, and Majka put Roglic under pressure in the climb and especially the descent. As a taste of what awaits the Slovenian in the days to come. But Roglic did not lose anything on this duet accompanied by the Colombian Esteban Chaves, the mountain lieutenant of the Briton Simon Yates.
- Bora continues to win -
At the front, Polanc suffered to keep in touch with the best climbers of the breakaway. If he returned to the bottom of the descent of Montoso, he let go in the small wall before the arrival in the Piedmontese city of Pinerolo, west of Turin.
For the win of the stage, Benedetti has settled as his teammate Damiano Caruso and the Irishman Eddie Dunbar, a 22-year-old rider recruited last September by the Sky team (now Ineos), who makes him argue his first big tour at the Giro. The Italian has brought a third success to the Bora team, in full success after the two victorious sprints of the German Pascal Ackermann.
"I'm a teammate," said Benedetti, who kept a cool head when celebrating the first success of his career. "I'm almost 32 years old and I'm very happy but this victory will not change my life."
Friday, the Giro arrives in high mountains, at 2,247 meters above sea level, near the French border (north-west). The 13th leg, 196 kilometers long, starts from Pinerolo, climbs two passes and ends with a rise of 20.3 kilometers. To reach the new and protected Lago Serru site, above Ceresole Reale.
? 2019 AFP