Stage 11

The road

At the start

The flattest day, and Girmay is gone

Biniam Girmay does not start. The first Black African rider to win a Grand Tour stage was struck in the eye by a champagne cork on yesterday's podium in Jesi, and his Giro ends there. Nothing has changed at the front — Juan Pedro López by twelve seconds from João Almeida — and nothing will today: 203 kilometres from Santarcangelo to Reggio Emilia, drawn almost as a straight line.

How it was won

1. 1127 km to go

   Tagliani, inevitably, first

   The two-man break has 4:30 at most and Tagliani leads over the intermediate to extend his hold on that classification, while Cavendish beats Démare and Nizzolo for the minor points behind.

2. 258 km to go

   De Bondt breaks the boredom

   With the break long gone and the promised crosswinds refusing to materialise, the former Belgian champion digs off the front alone and takes a minute in short order. He will hang out there, at twenty or thirty seconds, for nearly sixty kilometres.

3. 3At the line

   Dainese from a long way back

   De Bondt is caught with 1.5km left and the trains foul each other in a messy launch. Démare hits the front too early, Gaviria comes past him, and then Alberto Dainese arrives from distance to snatch Italy's first win of this Giro in the final metres.

The result