2022 Giro d’Italia – Stage 16 – Highlights
Report
The Giro d’Italia of Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux was further embellished this Tuesday thanks to a victory of Jan Hirt in the sixteenth stage between Salo and Aprica, exactly one week after the success of Biniam Girmay in Jesi.
With over 5000 meters of climbing, it was one of the important stages of this 105th edition with notably the Passo del Mortirolo, one of the mythical climbs of the event.
The winner of the Tour of Oman joined a breakaway of 22 riders together with Lorenzo Rota and fought for a long time to increase its advantage. The gap grew over 4 minutes under the impetus of Lorenzo Rota in the downhill of Goletto di Cadino (19km at 6.2%).
Halfway through the 202 kilometer stage, the Passo del Mortirolo (12.7km at 7.7%) caused a lot of damage in both the breakaway and the peloton. While Jan Hirt crossed the top in the lead of the race with six other riders, Rein Taaramäe and Domenico Pozzovivo followed the maglia rosa group.
The seven leaders maintained their advantage, enabling them to fight for the stage win on the final climb Valico di Santa Cristina (12.7km at 8.1%). Jan Hirt left his competitors behind on the steepest part of the climb and crossed the top with an advantage of 15 seconds on his first chaser.
The Czech rider resisted to his chasers during the 8 kilometer downhill on wet roads and crossed the line as the winner, taking the ninth victory of the season for the Belgian team.
Richard Carapaz sprinted to fourth place to retain the maglia rosa after a hard-fought GC battle on a gruelling stage 16. Carapaz was part of a three-up sprint on the 202km stage and was edged out of third place on the line by second placed Jai Hindley (Bora Hansgrohe). This earned Hindley a four second bonus to reduce Carapaz’s lead overall, but the INEOS Grenadier gained time on a host of rivals, including third-placed Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates).
The INEOS Grenadiers pulled together in the opening climbs to maintain control of the race. Ben Swift, Ben Tulett and Jhonatan Narvaez combined well on the Goletto di Cadino to keep the break close and ensure no general classification threats escaped. They then had some help from Astana on the Passo del Mortirolo, with Vincenzo Nibali’s team setting the pace to setup an attack.
The Italian did accelerate, but Pavel Sivakov was able to catch up to him on the descent to setup a GC battle on the final climb.
The top three on GC, Carapaz, Hindley and Mikel Landa escaped the others in the closing kilometres, and while Jan Hirt won the stage from the break, the trio sprinted for third place and four bonus seconds, with Hindley narrowly edging Carapaz into fourth.