Montalcino (Italy) (AFP)

A number of aerobatics and power: Egan Bernal, irresistible on the "white roads" of Tuscany, reinforced his pink jersey of leader of the Tour of Italy, Wednesday in Montalcino, where he left behind all his rivals in the 11th stage.

Main victim of this stage won by the Swiss neo-professional Mauro Schmid, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel lost more than two minutes, just like the French Romain Bardet.

The other candidates (Vlasov, Carthy, S. Yates) limited the loss to about twenty seconds but suffered the law of the young Colombian, very comfortable throughout this day up to expectations.

"There are ten stages left, and all the big climbs," said Bernal, who extended his lead to 45 seconds over Russian Aleksandr Vlasov in the general classification.

Evenepoel, his biggest rival at the start of the stage, fell from 2nd to 7th place, nearly two and a half minutes.

Former world mountain bike medalist in the junior category, Bernal has consistently remained in the front ranks of the favorites peloton over the four dirt and gravel sectors, 35 kilometers spread over the last 70 kilometers of this stage in the Tuscan countryside.

Unlike Evenepoel, left behind in a descent on the first sector tackled headlong by the Italian Filippo Ganna on behalf of Bernal.

The alert for Evenepoel, who returned with the help of his teammates, sounded again on the third part, about twenty kilometers from the finish.

Tired, apparently exhausted to the point of throwing away his headset, the young Belgian (21 years old), who paid for his limited cycling experience which he discovered late, owed his salvation to the Portuguese Joao Almeida who had him helped until arrival.

- Schmid reveals himself -

At the front, Bernal found himself at the foot of the climb to the town of Montalcino outnumbered in the group which still included three riders from the EF Education team (Carthy, Guerreiro, Bettiol).

The Colombian, whose team had worked a lot before, had the wisdom to wait for the last slopes to fall on the German Emanuel Buchmann who had taken the lead and asserted himself the strongest of the day.

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"The most complicated in this kind of stage is mentally," he commented afterwards.

"You have to find the right balance, be constantly focused, not take too many risks. That's all that is difficult."

Eleventh on the stage, the wearer of the pink jersey shared the honors of the day with Schmid, a 22-year-old Swiss who had never yet won at the international level in juniors, hopes or in the WorldTour peloton he joined. at the start of the year in the WorldTour under the colors of the Qhubeka team.

"I only knew two weeks before the start that I was going to run the Giro," said Schmid.

"I suffered a lot but today I really wanted to attack because I like to run on dirt roads a lot".

The second Swiss to win a stage this year (after Gino Mäder), Schmid is the youngest Giro stage winner since the Italian Giulio Ciccone (21 years old in 2016).

Thursday, the 12th stage connects Siena to Bagno di Romana over 212 kilometers of a hilly course, favorable to backpackers.

With the fourth and last ascent, the Passo del Carnaio, at the entrance of the last ten kilometers.

© 2021 AFP