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2019 Giro d’Italia: Stage 19 Preview

  • Ron 

After Thursday’s last offering for the sprinters, Friday’s 151km stage from Treviso to San Martino di Castrozza is a short(ish)  mountain stage that serves up three categorized climbs and a summit finish.

The stage starts with undulating terrain until the approach to the Passo San Boldo climb at km 60. The early slopes at at a 5.3% gradient before it turns up to hair-pinned 9.4% in the final 2.5km. The last five hairpins actually take place in a tunnel, which should make for some unique television coverage.

The route then descends and levels out all the way to Feltre before heading up the Category 4 Lamon. From there, the stage travels across the Val Cismon in a series of tunnels as far as Fiera di Primiero, where the closing climb to Category 2 San Martino di Castrozza begins.

The climb starts with two hairpins, followed by a a succession of mild curves circling the mountainside intersected with two pairs of hairpins in-between. Gradients hover steadily around 5%, with just very short stretches sloping at 10%, mid-climb. The final kilometer winds its way through the centre of San Martino di Castrozza, and eventually levels out 100m from the finish.

The home stretch is 200m long, but relatively narrow at 5m.

The climbers took a break in Thursday’s stage, so their legs should be more fresh for these less than taxing mountains. Primoz Roglic showed he still had a little fire left on Tuesday, so he may be looking to set off some fireworks on Friday.

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