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Ascent to the snow-covered Monte Zoncolan
Photo: TIM DE WAELE / AFP
With a good performance in the toughest mountain finish of the Giro d'Italia, the German professional cyclist Emanuel Buchmann preserved his chances of a podium placement.
On the drive up to the notorious Monte Zoncolan, the Ravensburger from Team Bora-hansgrohe belonged to the group of top drivers around front-runner Egan Bernal for a long time before the Colombian favorite and the Briton Simon Yates took off.
The victory on the 14th stage went to the Italian Lorenzo Fortunato single-handedly after the extremely steep final kilometers.
Bernal finished fourth for the day and extended his lead in the overall standings.
Yates is now second, 1:33 minutes behind, and third is Italian Damiano Caruso, who is another 18 seconds behind.
The 28-year-old Buchmann finished 13th on the stage and is still sixth, 2:36 minutes behind.
Fog, snow, six degrees
The stage ran over 205 kilometers and started in Citadella. A breakaway group of eleven formed at times, which meanwhile had a nine-minute lead and of which took six and a half minutes into the final ascent. On the last few kilometers before the finish line, where there was still snow and fog with temperatures of only six degrees, Fortunato pulled away from Jan Tratnik, who was ultimately runner-up from Slovenia, with whom he was ahead of four others.
The 1730 meter high Monte Zoncolan has been part of the Giro program since 2003 and this time it was approached from the east side for the first time since the premiere.
On the 13.5 kilometer ascent, almost 1200 meters of altitude had to be conquered, the steepest ramps have an incline of more than 20 percent.
The authorities had approved 1,000 spectators for the mountain arrival, the tickets were sold out within twelve minutes.
The 15th stage this Sunday leads over 147 kilometers from Grado to Gorizia.
aha / dpa