“Buitrago Wins Giro d’Italia Stage 19 as Thomas Remains in Pink Jersey”

Canadian Derek Gee (Israel – Premier Tech) finished second with a 51-second deficit, Dane Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost) was third with a loss of 1:46 min. For the 23-year-old Buitrag, this is the second triumph from the Grand Tour events, last year he won the seventeenth stage at the Gire.

Britain’s Geraint Thomas remained at the head of the overall classification. The newly 37-year-old driver of the Ineos Grenadiers team has a 26-second lead in the fight for the pink jersey over the Slovenian Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), who cut three seconds off the deficit on Friday. If Thomas manages to hold on to the lead, he will become the oldest winner of the Giro in its 106-year history.

In Friday’s stage in the Dolomites, up to 5,400 meters of climbing awaited the cyclists, while the final two kilometers went up a brutal 14 percent hill. In the beginning, several groups connected in front and created a breakaway of 15 people, the peloton lost five minutes. Bais was also on the breakaway, and his rivals ignored him for a long time in the fight for the mountain jersey of Healy and Pinot, until later they decided to go after the leading group. However, the Frenchman did not cooperate on the flat, so they both wrapped it up and returned to the peloton, which included all the favorites.

The escape was already divided on the Passo Valparola hill (length 14.1 km; slope 5.6%), the qualitative differences between the competitors were large. Stojnič did not stop the pace and fell out of the breakaway, which remained quite compact, but there were still three hills waiting for him. At Passo Giau (length 9.9 km; gradient 9.3%), a group of 14 competitors arrived seven minutes ahead of the main field, in which Ineos began to take the initiative. The lead of the breakaway was decreasing very quickly and the five Buitrago, Cort, Gee, Verona and Hepburn broke away at the front.

Gee won the bonus 13 km before the finish line, but he did not get past Pinot in the climbing classification. Nothing major happened among the favorites, several competitors gradually dropped out, but no one from the Top 10. At the start of the climb to the finish hill Tre Cime di Lavaredo (length 7.2 km; slope 7.6%), Gee started, in the first short, steep passage after him they published Buitrago with Hepburn. Roglič attacked in the peloton, but Thomas brilliantly intercepted his start. After four second places at this year’s Giro, Gee fought hard for his first triumph, but again he was not judged. The Colombian escaped him 1.5 km before the tape and brought the solo escape to a successful end. The fourth Roglič squeezed out the last remnants of strength and took three seconds off the pink jersey.

“I am very happy with this victory. I wanted to choose the pace at the end and this tactic paid off. This year’s Giro is great for me and the whole team. Every day, in every stage we go all out and fight. Today’s victory is motivation for us for the next one work,” said Buitrago to the Eurosport cameras.

On Saturday there is an individual time trial from Tarvisio to Monte Lussari (19 km). On Sunday, the Giro culminates with a flat stage in Rome (135 km).