Stage 12

The road

At the start

Parma to Genoa, over the Passo del Bocco

The longest stage of this Giro, and the first time since 2011 that the race has climbed the Passo del Bocco, where Wouter Weylandt died on the descent. Juan Pedro López holds pink for a ninth day, twelve seconds up on Richard Carapaz and João Almeida, with Romain Bardet at fourteen and Jai Hindley at twenty. Three third-category climbs stand in the way, and none is hard enough to move any of that.

How it was won

1. 1107 km to go

   Over the Bocco, for Weylandt

   The first time the Giro has climbed the Passo del Bocco since Wouter Weylandt died on its descent in 2011, and the race marks it as it comes down. Mollema leads a twenty-strong break over the top for the nine mountain points.

2. 253 km to go

   Rota's crucial attack

   Nine kilometres at 4.3%, and Lorenzo Rota picks exactly the right moment to go for full points over the top — the move that ultimately whittles the break down to the three who will fight for the stage.

3. 331 km to go

   4.3km at 8% above Genoa

   Rota takes the points again ahead of Oldani and Leemreize. The trio's lead over Buitrago, Mollema, Kelderman and Hamilton dips to thirty-five seconds, then stretches back out to fifty on the roads down into the city. The peloton is eight minutes away and utterly disinterested.

4. 4At the line

   Oldani wins the cat-and-mouse

   The race crosses the Ponte San Giorgio, where forty-three trees stand for the forty-three killed in the Morandi collapse. Leemreize attacks inside the last kilometre, is closed down, goes again at 200 metres — and is passed by both Rota and, fastest of the three, Stefano Oldani.

The result