Richard Carapaz retains the lead despite his fall

(Cogne) Escorted by his Ineos Grenadiers teammates during three long climbs, Richard Carapaz ignored a fall early in the race and retained the pink leader’s jersey of the Giro d’Italia.

Italian Giulio Ciccone was part of an early breakaway before launching a solo attack on the final climb to win the 15th^and stage, Sunday.

Carapaz, who had taken possession of the pink jersey the day before, maintained a lead of seven seconds over Jai Hindley and 30 seconds over Joao Almeida.

Giro champion in 2019 and Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo last summer, Carapaz was involved in a major accident early in the race.

The Ecuadorian, however, indicated that his fall had “no consequences”.

“I just had to change bikes,” he said. The rest went well. The race script was quite good. The first portion was tough, then we handled it well. »

Ciccone was cheered on by his supporters and threw his sunglasses into the crowd before crossing the finish line, which is his tradition. It is for him a third stage victory at the Giro, a first this year. He also wore the yellow jersey for two stages at the Tour de France in 2019.

“It’s my best victory. It’s even better than having the yellow jersey at the Tour de France and my previous Giro victories because I’ve been through tough times over the past two years with crashes, illness and COVID.” Ciccone said.

Ciccone, from Trek-Segafredo, covered the 178 kilometers between Rivarolo Canavese and Cogne in 4 hours 37 minutes.

The last 22.2 kilometer climb to get to Cogne was mostly difficult at first and only had an average gradient of 4.3%. Requiring around an hour to climb, it nevertheless allowed Ciccone to attack with 18.8 kilometers to go.

Santiago Buitrago was second, 1:31 behind Ciccone. Antonio Pedroro followed, 2:19 behind the winner.

Carapaz crossed the finish line almost eight minutes late.

“I chose to attack with 19 kilometers to go because it was the hardest part of the climb and I wasn’t sure I could get away from my rivals later,” said Ciconne.

Alexander Cataford of Ottawa took the 109^and rank of the stage, at 32:21 from Ciccone. The Israel-Premier Tech cyclist occupies the 97^and rank of the general classification, at 2:35:05 from Carapaz.

After a day off on Monday, the Giro will resume on Tuesday with one of the toughest stages in the sport. Cyclists will cover 202 kilometers between Salo and Aprica, including the Mortirolo pass.

The Tour of Italy will end next Sunday in Verona.