Professional cyclist Emanuel Buchmann continues to drive towards the best German placement in almost four decades at the Giro d'Italia.
The 29-year-old Ravensburger defended his seventh place overall in the victory of Italian Giulio Ciccone on the difficult mountain stage to Cogne on Sunday and is 2:00 minutes behind the leading Olympic champion Richard Carapaz in the final week of the Giro from Tuesday.
Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe) finished 17th in the group of favorites, 7:50 minutes behind.
Just ahead of him was his teammate Lennard Kämna (Wedel), the stage winner from Mount Etna again showed a very strong performance in twelfth place (+7:48).
At the same time as Buchmann, Bora's Australian Jai Hindley maintained his second place overall, nine seconds behind Carapaz.
In 1983, Dietrich Thurau (fifth place) was the last German rider to finish the Giro in the top ten.
So far, Buchmann had only finished fourth in the top 10 of one of the three major national tours at the 2019 Tour de France.
Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) prevailed in a heated battle at the mountain finish at 1622 m as a soloist with a lead of 1:31 minutes over Colombian Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious).
Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) had conquered the pink jersey on Saturday when British rider Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) won the stage on the demanding 14th section with 3200 meters of altitude difference.
There the former Giro winner Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands/Jumbo-Visma) had given up as the next top rider after the French Romain Bardet, Buchmann moved up one place as a result.
After the last day of rest on Monday, the Giro will continue with the next climb over 202 km from Salo to Aprica.
Four of the remaining six stages take place in the high mountains, the tour ends on May 29 in Verona.