The gap was further reduced between Carapaz and his Australian runner-up Jai Hindley who beat the wearer of the pink jersey for the... bonus for third place in the stage (4 seconds).

Hindley thus approached 3 seconds behind the Olympic champion, five days from the finish.

Hindley and Carapaz tied the game on the last climb (Santa Cristina), the most selective of this stage, with the Spaniard Mikel Landa, who tried to go on the offensive.

But the trio could not decide, no more than they managed to dig a definitive gap on the Portuguese Joao Almeida, the fourth contender.

Almeida, the best rider in the quartet ahead of Sunday's final time trial in Verona, limited the time loss to 14 seconds at the finish.

But his delay reached 44 seconds on Carapaz.

Behind the top four in the standings, the gaps widened.

To see the scowling face at the arrival of the Italian Vincenzo Nibali, who nevertheless advanced from 8th to 5th place (at 3 min 40 sec), the differences are substantial.

Hirt the Mortirolo lover

"I gave in in the last part of the climb of Santa Cristina", lamented the "Shark of Messina", double winner of the Giro (2013, 2016), underlining the forcing of the Bahrain team of Landa: "J tried to handle the situation."

Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, still in the pink jersey of the Giro after the 16th stage in Aprica, Italy, May 24, 2022 Luca Bettini AFP

On these steep slopes, the fatigue of this long stage (202 km and three first category passes) weighed on the legs.

If the Mortirolo, climbed by its less difficult side, had acted as skimming, the Santa Cristina, a narrow road twisting on the heights of Aprica (13.5 km at 8% but the last 5600 meters beyond 10%), caused the selection.

Up front, among the survivors of the initial breakaway, Hirt joined the young Dutchman Thymen Arensman to overtake the German Lennard Kämna who had taken the lead.

The Czech took the lead at the top and maintained a few seconds lead over Arensman, despite derailleur issues and a risky descent on a partly wet road.

"I wanted to be in the breakaway to have a chance of winning", commented Hirt, who at 31 took the best of five successes of his career and signed a second victory for the Belgian team Intermarché (after Biniam Girmay in the 10th step).

In the 2019 Giro, the Czech climber had already shone on the Mortirolo to take second place in the Ponte di Legno stage, behind the Italian Giulio Ciccone.

"Whenever I hear about the Mortirolo, I usually do something good," smiled Hirt, revealing that he suffered from cramps on the long descent of this mythical Giro pass.

On Wednesday, the 17th stage connects Ponte di Legno to Lavarone over 168 kilometers.

After the cold-climbed Passo del Tonale, the route features two first-class climbs in the last 50 kilometers, the Vetriolo and the Menador, another name for Monte Rovere, which is less than 8 kilometers from the finish.

© 2022 AFP