After demonstrating in the Giro that he has a place at
the top end of Grand Tour racing in the future, the final stage was a
disappointment for Eddie Dunbar.
The 22-year-old Irishman crashed in the final TT today in
Verona, losing time and one position in the overall.
Indeed, he was last placed man on the stage but luckily
for him the crash did not prevent him from finishing.
Conor Dunne (Israel Cycling Academy) also finished the
race today; the second Grand Tour of his career.
He placed 124th today at 3:07 and ended the race in 135th.
Dunne went in the stage 12 breakaway that wasn’t caught and also worked to get
his team sprinter into position many times.
This Giro took place for him against the backdrop of
having become a father for the first time; his son born just before the race
began.
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And while that made leaving home to race especially hard
this time around; Dunne applied himself very professionally and with his characteristic
positive attitude.
He also had a Giro Diary published daily in the Irish
Independent newspaper in Dublin; some nice recognition for his prowess on the
bike.
His presence in the race also meant the Irish champion’s jersey got exposure on the Italian Grand Tour.
Richard Carapaz (Movistar) is the race winner; the Ecuadorian climber not putting a foot wrong and winning two stages during something of an old-school aggressive Grand Tour victory.
The 26-year-old was not a favourite before the start but
he looked the strongest in the race on the climbs.
He was a deserving, entertaining and exciting winner; not
for him making gains in TTs and then hanging on in the mountains.
For Dunbar, there was no confirmation at the time of writing as to the extent of his injuries. We’ll bring you news when we have it.
Dunbar (Team Ineos) had said he was looking forward to
one more big effort on the Giro, adding he intended to get the last out of his
legs in today’s TT.
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In the end, however, it became a mission to simply finish the stage. And after 17km of racing he was in 142nd place, some 4:20 down on surprise stage winner Chad Haga (Team Sunweb).
That result saw Dunbar drop one place in the general
standings; finishing the race in 22nd some 42:16 down on Giro 2019 champion
Carapaz.
However, while the result today and the fact he hit the
deck was a disappointing turn of events, Dunbar had a great Giro.
He went in a number of breakaways, took 3rd on stage 12 and looked especially impressive on the climbs of the past two days.
Dunbar's consistency of performance through the full three-week race confirms his potential in Grand Tours.
Eddie Dunbar, a late addition to the Team Ineos line-up
for the Giro, was also last man standing a number of times when team leader
Pavel Sivakov needed help.
And that ensured the 21-year-old Russian had crucial
assistance at key moments and so retained his 9th place overall.
The winner of today’s stage, Haga, is aged 30 years. He
took his only previous victory in a UCI-ranked race on a TT stage of Tour of
Elk Grove (2.1) in the US back in 2013.
He won the Giro test today by four seconds from Victor
Campenaerts. Lotto-Soudal European TT champion and world hour record holder
Campenaerts was collecting his second TT runner-up spot of the race.
His team mate Thomas de Gendt was 3rd today, just six seconds
back. Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) was best of the big general classification
men, taking 9th place at 23 seconds.
And in 10th place was Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) another
three seconds back. He looked so strong in the early part of the race, beating
his rivals in the first two TTs by a huge amount.
However, on the climbs of the third week he looked a
shadow of his former self. Carapaz wore the pink jersey into today’s test and
finished 36th in the TT at 1:12.
However, in the final standings he won out by 1:05 from Nibali, with Roglic 3rd at 2:30, jumping over Mikel Landa (Movistar) by just eight seconds in the final overall.
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