The last day of the Italian short round was held this Friday at the same location as Lienz in Austria, a place that went to the auction of the Tour of the Alps this year. The route was 114.5 km with 2 mountain passes, although in reality there were more climbs that were not categorized, but that ultimately made something of a difference between the runners.
The Basque cyclist Pello Bilbao from Bahrain Victorious started this day as leader of the general standings, however, a few seconds away he had a large part of the squad, so the dispute for the lead and yet for the title of the race became intense.
Until this day, 4 Colombians had already left the competition for different reasons, with some remaining others such as Miguel Ángel López from Astana who won the previous day, Einer Rubio of the Movistar Team who was in the top places in the general standings, Santiago Buitrago of Bahrain Victorious as part of the top 10 overall and Esteban Chaves of the EF Education EasyPost, to name a few.
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The stage was short, which caused the runners' reactions to arrive earlier during the course. A large escape started from the big squad, at least 15 cyclists came out looking to face the options a partial victory, while the batch of favorites saw how they moved away 83 km from the finish line.
Later, 73 km to the end, the fugue group was divided to leave several groups of runners watered along the track, while the platoon, behind, pressed the pace. Ahead were Thibaut Pinot of the FDJ, Lennar Kamna del Bora, David de la Cruz del Astana and two other cyclists.
This movement led some cyclists to decide to slow down so that they were absorbed into the main squad, while others were left floating between the two race groups.
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Little by little the forces of several riders were diluted, but Pinot, who had not managed to win in stage 4, being overtaken by the Colombian Miguel Ángel López, proposed a strong rhythm this day being followed only by De la Cruz, remaining as his only contender when there were 20 km to go.
The main squad in the back sought to cut time with the two cyclists at the top, as Pinot became a threat to the overall classification given that he was separated from Bilbao as leader by 13 minutes and 58 seconds, and the time he had under 17 km to the finish was just over 12 minutes.
Pello Bilbao suffered two mechanical breakdowns during the course, so he had to recover quickly with the help of his teammates. Even so, Bahrain Victorious pulled the group to narrow the gap with the top of the race and also control their opponents in the group.
De la Cruz and Pinot attacked each other in the last 11 km of the race, but it seemed that the forces of the Spaniard and the Frenchman were even. However, in the auction Pinot would be the one who would take a last breath to attack a few meters from the finish and thus achieve his first victory of the year with the FDJ.
Meanwhile, from behind Richie Porte of Ineos Grenadiers moved the race by selecting with an acceleration the group that would go ahead of the pack to define the race. Although the Australian was not enough to fight the title, others such as Bardet, who was second overall, took the opportunity to impose a good race pace together with his DSM teammate Thymen Arensman, as well as Michael Storer of the FDJ.
Bilbao would not stand the pedaling of its rivals and would give up the lead and therefore would lose the chance of winning the race in its 45th edition against Romain Bardet who finally won the race.
The Colombians, except Esteban Chaves of EF Education EasyPost who had to leave the competition, were like this in the general standings after the last stage:
-Santiago Buitrago 8° to 1′57″
-One rubio 13° to 2′41″
-Miguel Angel Lopez 27° to 14′40″
-Sebastian Hainaut 33° to 22′13″
-Yesid Pira 46° a 33′36″
-Johnatan Canaveral 65° to 46′55″
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