Giro dItalia: Victor Campenaerts wins stage 15 – Cyclingnews.com

Victor Campenaerts (Team Qhubeka Assos) took his first World Tour victory in stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia into Gorizia. The Belgium time trial specialist attacked out of a large breakaway of 15 riders taking a small group clear. Only Oscar Riesebeek (Alpecin-Fenix) was able to live with Campenaerts and the pair were in a tactical battle towards the finish with both riders attacking. 

However, they ended up sprinting for victory with Campenaerts having enough to power past his breakaway companion for victory. With a big mountain stage 16 in prospect on Monday and a tough climbing day in the Dolomites with three climbs at over 2,000 metres before a descent into the finish at Cortina D’Ampezzo, the bunch allowed the breakaway to compete for the stage. 

A relaxed finish for the bunch saw them finish safely at a steady pace over 17 minutes behind the winner. 

“It was fantastic,” said Campenaerts. 

“This morning at breakfast we said ‘what else can we do to make this Giro greater for the team?’ Three victories are just epic, we went all-in for today as it was the last chance to get a good result with the team we have. 

“We gave everything at the start, it was quite dramatic with the crashes. We were already away in the first few kilometres but we did the same thing again. 

“Three guys in the breakaway and we were just so committed. We all had a good result and I took the victory. We try to give everything for each other and we did an amazing race. We were very motivated for the stage. Team Qhubeka Assos had a hard time to stay alive and we did. We now have three great victories from this Giro and I think this is an amazing chance to get a new sponsor for the team.” 

In the race for the overall Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) maintained his 1:33 advantage over second placed Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange).

How it unfolded

After taking an emotional victory on stage 13 into Verona, European champion Giacomo Nizzolo (Team Qhubeka Assos) decided to abandon the race ahead of a stage which he could have targeted. 

However, in a statement ahead of the stage Nizzolo said he had been struggling on the climbs so decided to abandon and recover ahead of the remainder of the season. 

Stage 15 was another test of 147 kilometres for the fast men with three ascents of the Gornje Cerovo to tackle, with a maximum gradient of 15 per cent, with the final ascent coming less than 17 kilometres from the finish the Gorizia finish. 

Straight from the start riders were attacking keen to get into the day’s breakaway on the exposed coastal road out of Grado. 

The frantic start resulted in a big crash four kilometres into the race and the organisers chose to neutralise and then stop the riders while the casualties received assistance. 

Jos Van Emden (Team Jumbo-Visma) was hurt in the crash, as was Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe), who sat sixth on general classification at 2:36 ahead of the stage. 

Both riders were forced to abandon the race along with Natnael Berhane (Cofidis) and Ruben Guerreiro (EF Education-Nippo) and the race eventually got back underway after around 20 minutes. Straight from the restart, a large breakaway of 15 riders went clear including Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), lead-out man Simone Consonni (Cofidis) and Nikias Arndt (Team DSM), which went clear while the bunch behind called for calm. 

Mollema was the best-placed overall of classification 41:42 back while Quinten Hermans (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Dario Cataldo (Movistar), Belgium champion Dries De Bondt (Alpecin-Fenix) also joined him. 

Victor Campenaerts led a trio of Team Qhubeka Assos riders in the breakaway alongside Max Walscheid and Lukasz Wisniowski. A chasing group of four looked to join the leading group but were stuck between a relaxed bunch and a well-working breakaway eventually falling back. 

De Bondt launched a brief attack to take the first immediate sprint at Mariano del Friuli with 95 kilometres remaining while the breakaway had a gap of almost 10 minutes on the bunch. 

On the first of three ascents of the fourth category Gornje Cerovo climb Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto Soudal) was denied the king of the mountain’s points by a late sprint by De Bont while Mollema finished third. 

Much was the same by the second ascent with 50 kilometres remaining with De Bont skipping clear to take the king of the mountains points ahead of Mollema and Oscar Riesebeek (Alpecin-Fenix). 

The breakaway was set to battle it out for the stage with the bunch setting 11:29 back led by Ineos Grenadiers. With 31 kilometres remaining attacks started from the breakaway for victory with Riesebeek breaking the alliance but marked straight away by Campenaerts. 

On the flat approach to the final climb, Campenaerts attacked again with Riesebeek and Albert Torres (Movistar) responded and despite discussions between the trio about workload they had an advantage of 30 seconds at the bottom of the final Gornje Cerovo over 1.7 kilometres. 

Hermans pushed the pace on the climb and was joined by De Bont in pursuit of the leading trio led by Campenaerts. Fast finisher and track rider Torres gave it everything to keep in contract with Campenaerts and Riesebeek over the steepest part of the climb but lost contact over the top. 

The rain was pouring down in the fast final 16 kilometres into the finish with Campenaerts and Riesebeek giving everything to stay away 28 seconds clear of six chasers remaining from the original breakaway catching Torres. 

Campenaerts took risks on the descent to distance Riesebeek and a lack of co-operation saw the gap drop to 16 seconds with six kilometres remaining as the Alpecin-Fenix rider attacked three times to no avail. 

On a final rise with three kilometres remaining, Riesebeek forced the pressure before Campenaerts attacked pulling out an advantage with 16 seconds to the chasers. 

However, Riesebeek bridged the gap before the last kilometre resulting in a tactical exchange with the chasers closing in. 

Riesebeek led the sprint out but Campenaerts had enough to power by to deny him victory while Arndt led home five riders remaining from the breakaway to take third. 

 “I think it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and maybe I made a mistake,” said Riesebeek.  “Of course he (Campenaerts) was also really strong and it’s hard after 15 days. I’m really disappointed. I tried to sprint but Campenaerts came.”