Verona (Italy), May 21, LETA – AFP. Italian cyclist Giacomo Nicolo of the Qhubeka ASSOS team on Friday celebrated the victory in the 13th stage of the prestigious multi-day cycling race “Giro d’Italia”, but the leader before the mountain stages was the Colombian Egan Bernals.
On Friday, cyclists traveled 198 kilometers of plains from Ravenna to Verona. Predictably, the struggle for victory in the stage took place in the finish sprint among the best sprinters.
Nicolo proved his superiority by celebrating the long-awaited victory in the stages of the Giro d’Italia. The 32-year-old Italian has won the sprinters twice, but has never won any of the stages. Prior to that, he climbed the podium 16 times, taking several second and third places.
Edoardo Afini (“Jumbo-Visma”) acknowledged his compatriot’s superiority in the sprint, while the third was Peter Sagan from Slovakia (“Bora-hansgrohe”). The large group finished the stage in four hours, 42 minutes and 19 seconds. It featured all the cyclists currently battling for first place on the tour.
Three of the next four stages will be particularly mountainous and are likely to bring about a change in the overall score.
“It was finally an easy day, tomorrow will be difficult,” says Berne (Ineos Grenadiers), the overall leader of the tour. “Now we have to start thinking about tomorrow. You never know what will happen. We won’t risk it.”
On Saturday, cyclists will cover 205 kilometers with three categorized climbs. The culmination of the stage will be the last ascent in which the athletes will ride up the legendary Jonkolan Hill. The last time one of the stages of the tour was finished there was in 2018, when the British Laureate Christopher Frome won the laurels.
Bernala’s closest follower, Alexander Vlasov (“Astana – Premier Tech”), loses 45 seconds to the leader, while the third place is taken by the Italian Damian Carouso (“Bahrain – Victorious”), who is one minute and 12 seconds behind.
It has already been reported that after the first stage, Krists Neilands, a Latvian representing the “Israel Start – Up Nation” team, experienced a fall on the way to the hotel, who broke his collarbone and could not continue the third “Giro d’Italia” in his career.
The Giro d’Italia is celebrating its 104th anniversary this year.
The bike ride will run until May 30, when it will finish in Milan with a 29.4-kilometer-long individual ride. Last year, the Italian tour took place in October and the victory was celebrated by the British Teo Geigen-Hart.
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