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Giro d'Italia 100 (Photo credit ANSA - Peri-Zennaro-Dal Zennaro-Bazzi).jpgGiro d'Italia Stage 16: Dramatic day sees Tom Dumoulin's lead slashed as Vincenzo Nibali wins
Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb has kept the overall lead at the 100th Giro d'Italia following a Queen Stage of the race in the Alps that will be talked about for years to come and which was won by defending champion Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida after a scintillating final descent.
Today's sixteenth stage of the race took in three huge climbs - the Mortirolo, followed by an unprecedented double climb of the Stelvio.
On Sunday's Stage 15 into Bergamo, Dumoulin had made the group containing the overall contenders wait after Movistar's Nairo Quintano, his closest rival on the General Classification, had crashed on a descent.
Today, the tables were turned as the Dutch rider, apparently suffering from an upset stomach, had to stop by the roadside ahead of the final climb, taking off the maglia rosa and lowering his bibshorts to let nature take its course.
Nibali's Bahrain-Merida team attacked, with Quintana following the move, when many watching believe they should have waited.
On the long, snaking descent into Bormio that concluded the 222 kilometre stage from Rovetta, Nibali got away from Quintana and caught Team Sky's Mikel Landa, who had spent most of the stage out on his own at the front of the race.
There were a couple of sketchy moments for Nibali on the way into Bormio, but as the road flattened for the final kilometre, the Sicilian was behind Landa, biding his time, and came round him to take the first Italian win of the race.
Dumoulin, who on the final climb seemed to be slipping out of the maglia rosa, managed to hang on but with Quintana finishing third, has seen his advantage slashed to just 31 seconds.
His rivals, however, will still need to ensure they take more time out of him ahead of Sunday's final time trial in Milan, where among the overall contenders the Team Sunweb rider will most likely take at least some of the time he may have lost.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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43 comments
The worst part is they made him ride back to it and pick it up in a plastic bag.
GOGO TD.
The more I watch cycling racing the more I feel this sport is grossly unfair.
I am going to stop watching cycling all together.
No wonder it is not a sport that most people watch.
How is the whole race about being fair and about sports? If nature called and then you are f,,,,ed?
"I'm just nipping for a quick Dumoulin, back in two mins."
And as for the descent, didn't TD make time back up on that?!
Some poor sportmanship, some bad timing, some bad luck but unless TD's anus went from 0-60 in a matter of minutes he could have stopped a little earlier and be in a much better position.
I don't buy Quintanas view he wasn't attacking, he was certainly (along with his team) and the nibble train putting up a decent pace. And as for the gravel rash loving russian, I expected nothing else.
Hopefully we'll get some karma and there will be a benelux style crosswind that catches out Nibles and Quincheato and then they both puncture at 3.1km from finish.
Lets not forget Quintano profitted well out of the neutralised decent in the 2014 giro. he would have won anyway but it wasn't sporting to attack.
He was taking a dump. Is there a better position?
Many things to consider:
Uphill
Downhill
Into the wind
With the wind
Squat position
etc
marginal gains available!
For me, I'd have waited. If they'd truly waited, dumoulin would have been back in no time, and the others could have taken the race to him having had a breather that Dumoulin hadn't had.
On reflection, how would you feel knowing you'd won the giro only because you attacked the leader whilst going to the toilet.
It's poor form from my perspective.
As for Landa, I don't think I've seen a more blatant example of being bought out for the stage. He had no reason to take a turn once nibbles had caught him, yet he leads out the last 2km. Then he leaves a gap on the inside of the last bend, before failing to has it... the faux bang bars in frustration also lacked any conviction.
Hating on Nibali is ridiculous. He didn't do a damn thing wrong.
Teams plan a whole GT around days like yesterday and plan whole seasons around the GTs... what are they to do if something unexpected happens that disrupts the plan? Hang around by the roadside shrugging their shoulders? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
It's not an easy game and sometimes fate deals someone a bad hand at a bad time.
Agree on the Nibbles bit, he rode well yesterday, wasn't the instigator of the attack and obsolved himself in my eyes on that decent.
I believe teams should be prepared enough to deal with occurences in with class and finess as befitting our sport. If that involves hanging about shrugging shoulders for 240 seconds out of 216,000 seconds racing on a non-crucial part of the stage, then yes, it does make absolute sense to me.
Are you in banking, or an American, you're not Lance Armstrong in disguise are you?
#... and then I was like PEW PEW PEW yeah ..
[/quote]
I believe teams should be prepared enough to deal with occurences in with class and finess as befitting our sport. If that involves hanging about shrugging shoulders for 240 seconds out of 216,000 seconds racing on a non-crucial part of the stage, then yes, it does make absolute sense to me.
[/quote]
I agree. But the bottom of the final climb of the Queen Stage isn't "non-crucial" is it?
Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for Dumoulin but I'm also happy for Nibali. We'll see what happens today but Dumoulin is still in a pretty good position as long as he can keep his bibs on...
Well I've read everything that everybodys had to say on the subject - riders and pundits - and I think really this ought to be treated like the use of drugs - I am not prepared to except that this was all because he had to go for a poo and the UCI should get involved making it that all riders have to poo into a test tube and that there needs to be a A and B sample.... so thats two poo's into two test tubes and they need to be stored for set length of time so that we can go back and check that they were real poo's and not some kind of poo substitute.
The peleton did slow for TD, but you could see that he was so far back that on one of the switchbacks that they all started looking at each other questioning it.. Zakarin was a dick being the first to attack. They could and should have given him a couple more mins, he'd have been on his arse from the effort to catch up anyway.
The sporting 'issue' with that is that Landa would have taken the stage from the break.
If anyone things that 'getting rid' of sportsmanship is a the way forward then you are plain wrong, the win at all costs ethos doers not produce heros it just produces selfish narrow minded winners.
Our sport which has a long tradition of sportsmanship (and non sportsmanship) we need heros and villans it's all part of the excitement!
Regardless WHAT A STAGE, Nibbles on the last decent had me on the edge of my seat, that hop over the water before a corner was mental, he truly is the don of downhill. I wish we saw more of it.
Nibbles is a great descender, although he oversmoked it into one corner ahead of that water and sat up in a manner that suggested it wasn't far off going wrong. But that hop over the water was a total waste of time - Landa rode through it just fine and if you watch them roll onto the dry road on the other side there's hardly a wet tyre mark, suggesting water wasn't deep enough to affect handling. (That's even before you get to the fact that technically it was a pretty inept bunny hop.)
While we are on the subject of ineptitude .... What was Landa doing in that last km? Riding, not riding, leading out, not leading out - bit of indecision followed by some terrible cornering. My grandmother could have taken the hole shot on him in that last corner. Basically he bolloxed that finish completely.
Nibbles, agree 100%, was it twice his wheel slid out, great to watch though.
Landa was on his arse though and your mind does silly things when you're in that deep, you could see he put everything he had into getting over the summit in 1st place, I felt a bit sorry for him.
LeMond let it run down his leg. I assume Tom had something more solid to get rid of.
I was watching the stage late last night and woke the house laughing at Hatch's commentary "Bike change!!.. Changing his jersey??!! Er.. Oh!..Oh? No? no, NO!!..." The panic in his voice was hilarious. We needed the chuckling Carlton Kirby at that point. Crapping by the side of the road on live television can't really be described as a 'comfort break'
Good luck to TD. To my mind, without the dastardly quick thinking Valverde Movistar and Quintana are unresponsive and a bit fragile. I look forward to the final TT.
I think the rules need to be changed regarding your leaders natural breaks. I suggest that there should be time adjustments for tour leaders, to be calculated on the length of the break. This time should be taken off at the end of the stage. Creating a modicome of fair play.
Expecting other riders to wait is not practicable.
What do you guys think?
Since you asked I think that's ridiclulous. You aren't going to get race commissaires stood by the side of the road with a stopwatch timing somebody having a shit. The attention focussed on this incident shows how rarely there are any problems, and we can just let the racers get on with it.
Totally agree - it really isn't a problem in the vast majority of cases, and it just couldn't be policed.
Besides, if you deducted time for comfort breaks, there'd be tactical breathers... "I had to take 5 minutes for a squat, and then it just wouldn't come out. Then I bombed up Ventoux and I'll have my 5 minutes back, please".
The current set-up generally works.
This. "Medical" breaks get used strategically in tennis and definitely have an impact. Gamesmanship vs sportsmanship. Personally I love Nibbles as a bete noire. Looked very fresh again after the week three rest day, didn't he? Descending was mega yesterday although equally impressed that Landa stayed with him.
Agree on the tennis thing. You'd get Sky gaming it like the TUE system, all nine of them squatted at the foot of the Tourmalet pretending to have a shit if Contador attacks.
Kudos to Chad Haga for keeping his sense of humour yesterday.
Full marks for trying but absent a whip (like MvdP) doesn't score all that highly.
If winning the Giro means shitting your pants, so be it.
Can't believe TD prefers brown to pink, filthy bugger.
I guess this means the professional peloton is going to become much smellier place, with people riding around in brown bibshorts from now on, because stopping for a shit is no longer an option. Or possibly Billy Connolly has the answer.
Meatloaf, you're aware this isn't football aren't you. Fucking millennials? It appears to be you with no grasps about the history and etiquette of cycling!
Nibali is a shithouse and has never won without abuse, substance or otherwise!
Not having it, unless you're suggesting that TD is the only actual gent left.
There was at least a bit of a grey area when Sky went down, Movistar had been working bloody hard to ve in that position and it wasn't a Pink jersey issue.
The riders up the road would still have been caught today and they'd have only had to back off for about a minute.
It merely demonstrates how scare they are of Tom. The fact is, working together and attacking they didn't really gain much more than his shitting time depsite him being unwell. They know he is way ahead of them, any other winner at the end of this would be a fraud!
Thanks to his tweet, Dumoulin has a new fan in me.
It's a race, not a pootle. "Waiting" is for losers. Next stage, or next race, it could be you that has the advantage, or that falls behind, it will all even out in the end.
What's next, holding up the pace because a rider didn't train enough, or goofed off in the off season too much? If something unfortunate happens, that is your fate for the day, accept it and ride on, (or not), don't act like a millenial crybaby.
Bravo for Nibali!
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