The Colombian cyclist Santiago Buitrago won the 19th stage of the Tour of Italy on Friday, in a day in which João Almeida lost 20 seconds against Geraint Thomas and Primoz Roglic in the last kilometer of the route.
The Colombian joined the breakaway and overtook Canadian Derek Gee on the final climb. In the group of favourites, João Almeida still tried to set the pace to rule out the two rivals in the fight for the final victory of the Tour of Italy, but he could not follow Primoz Roglic’s attack, already within the last thousand meters. In the final meters, the Slovenian even gained two seconds over the pink jersey.
With these results, Geraint Thomas remains the leader of the Giro, with Roglic second, 26 seconds behind. João Almeida maintains third place in the standings, with 59 seconds more than Thomas. The Portuguese cyclist still wears the white youth leader jersey.
Within the top ten of the general classification, Damiano Caruso’s rise to fourth place stands out, in exchange for Eddie Dunbar, but more than three minutes behind João Almeida’s third place.
This Saturday, the cyclists face the last lap in which differences can be made between the favorites for the final victory of the Tour of Italy. The peloton will start individually for an 18.6 km time trial, of which the first ten are flat terrain and the last eight are hard climbs, with an average gradient of 11.2%.
Source: TSF
