Stage 15

The road

At the start

Carapaz in pink, the Alps at Cogne

Richard Carapaz took the maglia rosa off Juan Pedro López in Turin and holds seven seconds over Jai Hindley, thirty over João Almeida. Tom Dumoulin abandoned on the Pilonetto and three sprinters did not start at all; seventeen riders are now out. Today is the last before the rest day and the first true Alpine stage: 93 kilometres of valley false flat, then Pila, Verrogne and the drag to Cogne.

How it was won

1. 173 km to go

   Bouwman goes solo for the points

   Van der Poel attacks the comfortable break and Bouwman marks him, hungry for the blue jersey. Then, unwilling to leave it to a sprint, the Dutchman strikes out alone three kilometres from the top, takes a minute and collects all forty points.

2. 241 km to go

   Ciccone starts swinging

   Ciccone, Buitrago and Pedrero bridge to the Dutch trio, and Bouwman is dropped halfway up. Ciccone attacks again and again, shedding Van der Poel and then Tusveld with six kilometres of climbing left, and leads over the top for another forty mountain points.

3. 320 km to go

   Down to two on the road to Cogne

   Ciccone attacks at the very base of the final climb and cracks Tusveld, Costa and Pedrero at once. Buitrago falls away shortly after — and it is a straight fight between Ciccone and Hugh Carthy.

4. 418 km to go

   The acceleration that settles it

   With eighteen kilometres left Ciccone fires once more on the steeper gradients and Carthy has nothing left to answer with. Within minutes the gap is over a minute, and the Italian rides the rest of the climb like an unstoppable force.

5. 5At the line

   Ciccone alone at Cogne

   He crosses a minute and a half up on Buitrago, who caught and passed a fading Carthy for second. Behind them the GC men, five minutes back all day, have simply let the Alps pass by — for now.

The result