The return to “road stages” proved quite harsh on the Giro this Wednesday, as the peloton experienced a very intense eleventh stage towards Castelnovo ne’ Monti. It took nearly two hours for a massive breakaway to form, including Kevin Geniets and Rémy Rochas, but the peloton never eased off, resulting in a very fast race despite a lot of climbing. While Rémy Rochas was able to hold on to secure a fine seventeenth place at the finish, among the GC riders, David Gaudu, on the other hand, was dropped early on.
The “breakaway days” aren’t that many in a Grand Tour, so when one appears, no one wants to be left out of the party. This is what happened on Wednesday from Viareggio, on stage 11 of the Giro, featuring nearly 4,000 metres of elevation gain over 186 kilometers of racing, and including the very challenging Alpe San Pellegrino (13,8 km at 8,8%) at the halfway point. Attacks kept on coming for more than an hour in Tuscany, but the relatively flat profile of the first sixty kilometres never allowed a group to break away. It was only as the day’s major climb approached that a small peloton broke away from the bigger one. “It was quite a crazy stage,” said Rémy Rochas, a member of this group along with Kevin Geniets. “The team’s objective was to be in the breakaway. For me, the goal was to stay in the last twenty positions for the first eighty kilometres. In the end, I came towards the front at kilometre 75 on a small hill and found myself in the lead before the long climb, where the fight immediately started. I felt good, but I wanted to ride smart. I really wanted to take my own pace”.
“These days happen, and you have to accept them”, Stéphane Goubert
The breakaway split apart very early. Kevin Geniets was caught by the peloton, but Rémy Rochas kept chasing a few riders as they approached the summit. “My goal was to try to jump across in the last kilometres of climbing, but in the end, the peloton came back first,” he said. The peloton was at that point extremely reduced, and almost entirely made up of the GC leaders, without David Gaudu, who had been distanced a few kilometers earlier. “In addition to the context we all know and his delayed preparation, the consequences of his hand injury proved a little more severe than we thought,” explained Stéphane Goubert. “He’s on antibiotics, and his body didn’t react well to all that today. He tried to get into the mix, but when the climbs came, the feelings he’d had at the start were confirmed. These days happen, and you have to accept them.” The French rider was then supported by Sven Erik Bystrom until the finish line, while at the front, Rémy Rochas kept the wheel of the small pink jersey peloton until the final climb, with ten kilometres to go.Richard Carapaz launched the fight among the favorites and prevailed at the finish line. The Groupama-FDJ’s pocket climber came ten seconds later in a reduced chasing group and was able to secure seventeenth place. “I tried to play my cards right in the final,” he said. “I got pushed around a bit in my positioning, and because of the various accelerations, I didn’t have much energy left to sprint, but I’m still happy with the day.” “We can be happy with the spirit at the start,” Stéphane emphasized. “The guys did what they had to do despite the difficulty, they committed to the fight, and Rémy was up to the task today. He rode really well to get the best possible result.” David Gaudu crossed the line about twenty-seven minutes later and is now no longer in contention for the general classification. “There are still quite a few stages left and each day will be an opportunity,” Rémy concluded. “The most important thing is to stay together to support each other, in the most difficult days as well as in the happiest ones”.
