Eddie Dunbar rode on the front of the favourites group deep into the finale of Giro d'Italia stage 17 yesterday, only ceding time when the general classification men took flight.
Dunbar was part of the Team Ineos presence on the front of the group up the final climb after 181km of racing to Anterselva.
A group of 18 riders had gone clear in the breakaway, which gained over seven minutes at one point.
Davide Formolo (Bora-hansgrohe) was best placed overall
of the escapees, having started the day in 12th at 11:51.
And when the breakaway began pulling out serious time, a
number of teams became nervous.
The Movistar squad of race leader Richard Carapaz began
chasing, later aided by Bahrain Merida and Team Ineos.
And while Dunbar and his team mates took on their share
of the workload, the gap to the breakaway came down but they were not caught.
Advertisement
The group up front split to pieces with Nans Peters
attacking for Ag2r-La Mondiale to take a solo win; his first as a professional.
Related News
Dunbar was still on the front of the large favorites group by the time Mikel Landa (Movistar) attacked with about 3kn to go, causing it to split.
Landa was not caught and took 19th place some 4:27 down on winner Peters. Behind Landa it was his team mate and race leader Richard Carapaz that won out.
He finished one place and 12 seconds behind Landa, with
only Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) for company.
Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) and Primoz Roglic
(Jumbo-Visma) finished in a small group just seven seconds behind the overall
leader; a small, but psychologically significant, time loss.
Dunbar’s team mate Pavel Sivakov ceded 23 seconds to Roglic and Nibali and retained 9th place overall, which his team his now clearly riding to protect.
For his part, and after all his work, Eddie Dunbar was 43rd, some 6:10 down on the winner and 1:24 down on Nibali and Roglic. He remains 22nd overall.
Conor Dunne (Israel Cycling Academy) played the survival
game again; the last week a testing one to be respected by the non climbers.
He placed 133rd on stage 17 at 30:28 and is now closing
in on his second Grand Tour finish.
Topics
