Giro d’Italia stage 15: Tao Geoghegan Hart wins as João Almedia limits losses to hold pink

British rider Tao Geoghegan Hart kept Team Ineos Grenadiers’ success rolling at this 2020 Giro d’Italia, winning stage 15 from an elite group atop the climb to Piancavallo.

Geoghegan Hart was one of three riders to survive the relentless pace on the category 1 climb, and he sprinted past Sunweb duo Jai Hindley and Wilco Kelderman to take the stage victory, bringing Ineos Grenadiers its sixth stage win at this year’s Giro.

“I’ve only won a few races in my career so this is something incredible to me,” Geoghegan Hart said. “For me, crossing the line first is something truly incredible.”

The British rider dedicated the victory — his first in a grand tour — to the team’s late sport director Nicolas Portal, who died earlier this year at the age of 40.

“We lost him this spring and it’s been very difficult for the team,” Geoghegan Hart said. “All season we’ve had some great highs but also some big lows in the Tour. For me, personally, this race we have shown that Grenadiers spirit that we’re trying to foster to try and bounce back.”

The fight for the stage win came after a dramatic battle between the GC stars on the Piancavallo climb. Team Sunweb seized control of the race to try and unseat race leader João Almeida (Deceuninck–Quick-Step) and put Kelderman in pink.

The team’s relentless pace shed all of the GC stars, among them Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), and Domenico Pozzovivo (NTT Pro Cycling), who all fell away long before the finish.

Almeida held the relentless pace for much of the climb, but with 7 km to go, he too slipped away after Hindley upped the pace on the front.

Rather than panic, Almeida removed his race radio from his ear and pedaled onward, maintaining a steady pace as the Sunweb duo and Geoghegan Hart slowly disappeared up the road. Almeida entered the stage with a 56-second advantage on Kelderman, and the Portuguese rider appeared focused on keeping the time gap to a minimum.

As the trio battled for the stage win ahead, Almeida surged to the line. He ceded 41 seconds to Kelderman but managed to hold pink by 15 seconds heading into the Giro’s second rest day.

“In the first one or two kilometers, I thought I could come back to them,” Almeida said at the line. “Then I was just pushing my limits, it was a suffer test all the way to the finish.”

How the race unfolded

The stage’s punishing 185km route from the Rivolto airbase to Piancavallo featured a sharks tooth-like profile. The peloton faced three category 2 climbs, plus several uncategorized ascents, before the hulking cat 1 finish to the Piancavallo ski area.

Riders tackled the Sella Chianzutan at 65km; the Forcella di Monte Rest at 105km; and then the Forcella Pala Barazana at 143km before the ascent to Piancavallo. The final climb took the peloton to 1,290 meters in elevation after 14km of riding. The climb averaged 8 percent, with easier ramps between 4km and 3km to go.

The day’s early move included a smattering of WorldTour and UCI Pro Continental riders, with Nathan Haas (Cofidis), Daniel Navarro (Israel Start-Up Nation), Sergio Samitier (Movistar), Manuele Boaro (Astana), Mark Padun (Bahrain-McLaren), Matthew Holmes and Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), and Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers) riding with Giovanni Visconti and Edoardo Zardini (Zini Zabu), Luca Chirico (Androni Giocattoli), and Andrew Vendrame (AG2R-La Mondiale).

Deceuninck–Quick-Step controlled the pace, but at times the breakaway’s advantage ballooned to over 5 minutes on the course.

Dennis and De Gendt emerged from the group as the strongest, and the two riders powered away on the penultimate climb of the day, eventually being joined by Visconti. Dennis appeared to be the most motivated, and attacked over the top of the climb and then went into time-trial mode on the descent and valley to the final ascent of the day.

Behind, the peloton gained steam as riders from Astana and Sunweb added to the chase. Both teams appeared motivated to set things on on the finale.

Five Sunweb riders took the front as the pack hit the base of the climb, and the relentless pacemaking took an early toll. Dennis’ advantage tumbled quickly, while behind, GC men began to suffer.

Fuglsang pulled out of the lineup just inside 10km to go, and Domenico Pozzovivo (NTT Pro Cycling), Brandon McNulty (UAE-Team Emirates), and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-McLaren) were next to fall away. Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) lost contact a short time later as Sunweb continued to up the pace.

Vincenzo Nibali seemed to be in a comfortable position, riding on the heels of Kelderman as the front group was whittled down to just eight riders. And then, with 8.8km to go, Nibali fell away too, setting up the final battle to the line.