Favorites stage 12 Giro d’Italia | Corona fear at leaders...

After Wednesday’s sprint stage, we will face another difficult stage in the Giro d’Italia on Thursday. The twelfth stage is long and has a very difficult course with many vertical meters in the Apennines. A selective course, but still a large number of contenders for the stage victory. In the Leader’s jersey go through them with you.

The stage is 204 kilometers long and has about forty flat kilometers: the first 26 and the last 15. Furthermore, it is on and off all day and if we look at the conditions we can expect a full day course. Many early escapees already managed to hit this Giro and this ride is also excellent for that.

Early escapees after a hard race

It will be a fast stage with a hard course in the beginning, in which many riders will try to jump away. Riders who might try this are Thomas De Gendt, naturally, Mikkel Bjerg in Tanel Kangert, but we also expect mountain jersey wearers Ruben Warrior in the attack. With five categorized climbs, there are plenty of points to be gained. He finished it before.

Since Arnaud Démare this stage is not going to survive and the battle for purple is exciting, we expect that too Peter Sagan will try to slide again, after his fantastic putsch on Tuesday. There are two points sprints along the way, both on points in the race that the pure sprinters have already finished and Démare is probably also having a hard time. Obviously, Sagan can also finish in a sprint with a larger or small group, just like the strong ones Ben Swift and the dangerous outsider Andrea Vendrame.

Hill Specialists with a late attack?

Not only the early break has a chance, the late attackers also have a good chance in this stage, although it is a lot more difficult. The top of the last climb is more than thirty kilometers from the end. A soloist is therefore going to have a hard time. But if there is driven away in a group, then the turnips are done for the pursuers.

Also in the late flight we can expect a man like Sagan or Swift, but we turn our gaze to other men. Mikkel Honoré is a very good young rider who has tried it a few times, but unfortunately did not make it. This ride? It could just be that he likes men Diego Ulissi in Fabio Felline gets along. He still has to outsmart them in the final.

Nervous GC men: run for course

We saw it in Tuesday’s hill stage: the classification men are no longer sitting comfortably after the shock of the positive corona cases of Steven Kruijswijk and Michael Matthews and with it the exit of Jumbo-Visma and the badly hit Mitchelton-Scott. Will we still make it to Milan? Are we still racing tomorrow? These are questions that the cycling world asks itself every day and with that also the classification men.

So we just write men for the rankings. Wilco Kelderman is the biggest threat to the pink van João Almeida, both have a good final shot. Perhaps the Dutchman wants to make an early shot at the pink, to avoid being left empty-handed by a corona stop. In addition, he has proven to be very explosive and therefore an excellent attacker.

We also recognize an attacker in Jakob Fuglsang. Certainly after his unfortunate loss of time on Tuesday, he will want to make a move. Moreover, the climbs along the way are quite long, which plays into the hands of a classification battle. All in all, we are really looking forward to this stage. (photo: Sirotti)