2022 season, Giro d'Italia, Grand Tours, Race Analysis

Giro d’Italia 2022 : Stage 14 – Yates takes stage, Carapaz in pink, GC all shook up

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A crazy day at the Giro d’Italia saw the race’s shortest stage treat us to more action than the previous 13 stages combined. If I tell you that Simon Philip Yates, from Bike Exchange, won in Turin, ahead of Bora’s Jai Hindley and Ineos’s Richard Carapaz (who is the new race leader), I’d be sharing only a scintilla of what happened.

In a nutshell

OK. Deep breath.

Here’s the main thrust of the day: With 70km remaining, Bora decided to chuck in a chaos grenade. Their violent and unexpected acceleration saw many GC riders gapped. Some made it back on. Others suffered badly (more on them later).

After much winnowing, the race settled down to a front group of most of the GC contenders, Simon Phillip Yates and ALL of Bora. And I don’t just mean all the Bora riders at this race, it felt like every single Bora rider ever was in this group. Ruling the race for nearly 40km, Bora dictated the pace to set up their GC men Jai Hindley, Emanuel Buchmann and Wilco Kelderman for an assault on the pink jersey.

But this is bike racing and numbers don’t count for nuthin’. On the way up the magnificently named Superga climb, Richard Carapaz launched a big one. At the same time, Trek’s valiant pink jersey wearer Juan Lopez found himself going backwards. In about five pedal strokes, the maglia rosa changed hands, with Carapaz gaining 20 seconds over the chasers and 40 seconds on the now-former GC lead.

Carapaz held on solo for a while but on the next climb (which has too many vowels in its name for me to type out on this battered VeloVoices Olivetti), Yates, Hindley, and – whoa, look who it is! – Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) joined the Ineos rider by the summit.

Descending down to Turin, Yates attacked. As he is so far behind on GC, he’s basically in the Tour of the Alps, he was given the freedom to roll into town and take the stage win by 15 seconds.

You’ve got to love the way cycling works. By his own standards, Simon has had a rubbish Giro, and yet this is his second stage win of the race.

What went down?

With all due respect to the man from Bury, the real story of the stage was the way that Bora took a baseball bat to the GC today.

The best way to tell the story is to look at who was in the GC top ten this morning and see where they ended up after they got the Bora treatment.

1. Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek) Man, he tried. He got gapped over and over yet somehow dug deep enough to get back on terms with the leaders. However, when the going got really tough, Lopez got going … backwards. He came home 4:25 down on Yates and plummets to 9th on GC

2. Richard Carapaz (Ineos). The Olympic champion is the new maglia rosa with a 7 second lead.

3. Joao Almeida (UAE) He couldn’t hang with the fastest guys today, but ♥, albeit 30 seconds behind

4. Jai Hindley (Bora) Although set up brilliant by his team, he had to do the hard bits by himself. He looks a threat and now sits 2nd.

5. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) eh… yeah.. well… he’s nothing if not consistently inconsistent. Mr GC Yo-Yo had a shocker and never recovered after the first Bora attack. My beloved came in nearly 10 minutes down and drops to 12th. But look at him. Just look at him. ♥

[We’ll be getting these outfits for future VeloVoices recording sessions, although I suspect we’ll have to have simpler choreography – ed]

6. Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) It was a typically Mikel Landa day – he looked feisty at times, slow at others. He came in 51 seconds after Yates but, in true Landa style, manages to climb to 4th on GC.

7. Domenico Pozzovivo (Wanty-Intermarche-Gobert) Man, he’s having a great Giro! He was a battling 5th on this brutal stage and moves up to 5th on GC. As my learned colleague Midge would say, “yay Wanty”!

8. Emanuel Buchmann (Bora) Ninth place on the stage today moves him up to 7th on GC

9. Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) He’s nearly two minutes off Carapaz, but he still moves up to 6th on GC.

10. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) Another casualty of the Bora bonfire, he lost 8 minutes today but somehow manages to stay 10th on GC – albeit so far behind the leader that he’s in another time zone. Still, he looked in slightly better condition that his bike.

The big new entry into the GC top ten is Vincenzo Nibali, who sits 8th.

The GC has certainly taken a battering, but it’s still close at the top. With one minute and one second covering the top five, there’s no way that Carapaz is going to have an easy time of it next week.

All the results

Stage results 

1 Simon Philip Yates (Bike Exchange HowHaveWeWon2Stages) 3:43:44

2 Jai Hindley  (Bora HansShouldersKneesAndToes) +0.15

3 Richard Carapaz (Ineos WheresTheTrainTodayLads) same time

4 Vincenzo Nibali (Astana RememberUS) s/t

5 Domenico Pozzovivo (Wanty Fun Bus) +0.28

GC Top 10 

1 Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) 58:21:28

2 Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) +0.07

3 Joao Almeida (UEA Team Emirates) +0.30

4 Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) +0.59

5 Domenico Pozzovivo (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) +1:01

6 Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) +1:52

7 Emanual Buchmann (BORA-hansgrohe) +1:58

8 Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) +2:58

9 Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) +4:04

10 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +9:06

All the jerseys

Leader’s jersey : Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers)

Points jersey : Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ)

King of the Mountains: Diego Rosa (EOLO-Kometa)

Best young rider: Joao Almeida (UAE)

Team : Bora-hansgrohe 

For full race results, go to CyclingNews

Official Giro d’Italia website is here

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