Stage 16 of the 2025 Giro d’Italia was one of the hardest climbing days in recent memory. Crashes and cracks reshuffled the GC, leaving young Isaac Del Toro in pink and veterans like Richard Carapaz and Simon Yates closing in.
It was one of the hardest climbing stages in the recent era of the Giro d’Italia, with multiple mountain passes and a hard pace throughout the entire day. The fight for the general classification ended for two major pre-race favourites. Primož Roglič, as usual in his first Grand Tour of the season, crashed multiple times and had already shown signs of weakness before stage 16. Today, the Slovenian crashed hard and did not finish the stage. Juan Ayuso also suffered from crashes in previous stages and cracked today, losing 14 minutes. Mikel Landa and Giulio Ciccone, who could have played a key role in the third week, crashed earlier in the race. With so many favourites out, the race was wide open. The inexperienced Isaac Del Toro was leading, while the 2018 and 2019 Giro d’Italia stars from the lower watts-per-kilo era, Simon Yates and Richard Carapaz, were breathing down the neck of the Mexican rider.
Today’s stage finished on San Valentino (18.05 km at 6.2%), a hard climb with two shallower sections that bring down the average gradient, but most of the climbing sections were above 8%. The stage was extremely demanding overall. Derek Gee burned 4601 kilojoules before San Valentino, riding for 4 hours and 50 minutes at a rate of 13.83 kj/kg/h. The GC group did 5.9 ᵉW/kg for 30 minutes on Candriai and a massive 6.20 ᵉW/kg for 38 minutes on Santa Barbara, with EF and Rafal Majka setting the pace, while Max Poole, Simon Yates and Michael Storer attacked. Some GC riders such as Arensman, Ayuso, and Bernal were distanced, although Bernal later rejoined the group.
When San Valentino began, it was already clear the breakaway would take the stage win. XDS Astana duo Christian Scaroni and Lorenzo Fortunato were head and shoulders above the rest and crossed the finish line together. Wout van Aert, who was also in the breakaway, dropped back and paced the GC group for Simon Yates until 12 km to go. Soon after, Giulio Pellizzari attacked. Nobody followed, as he was five minutes back in the GC and had lost time supporting his team leader Roglič. He was never caught by the other GC riders.
Simon Yates was the first of the main contenders to attack, with Carapaz and Del Toro following and Gee bridging across. Carapaz, just like in the 2019 Giro, attacked. Del Toro and Yates stayed together, watching each other. The Mexican rider was not feeling great and cracked, finishing behind both Bernal and Damiano Caruso, but he managed to keep the pink jersey. Carapaz gained 13 seconds on Gee and 42 seconds on Yates, keeping the top four in the GC very close and setting up one of the most exciting third weeks of a Grand Tour this decade.
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Despite this stage being extremely hard even before the final climb, and despite San Valentino not fully suiting pure watts-per-kilo riders due to its irregular gradients, the numbers were still very high. Giulio Pellizzari, attacking earlier from the GC group, climbed San Valentino at 6.23 ᵉW/kg for 44 minutes and 22 seconds. Very few 21-year-olds in cycling history have done such a performance on a tough Grand Tour stage, with one of them being Tadej Pogačar in the 2020 Tour de France just before turning 22 comes close.
Unfortunately for Pellizzari, he had to work for Roglič earlier in the race, potentially losing his chance to win, or at the very least, to podium in this Giro. Carapaz, Yates, and Gee all produced between 6.03 and 6.15 ᵉW/kg for 44 to 45 minutes. All three were very strong in the 2024 Tour de France, where Gee finished 9th overall and Carapaz and Yates starred in possibly the highest-level mountain breakaways in cycling history, finishing first and second on stage 17 ahead of Enric Mas and other top names. The difference now is that Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel are not here. This Giro d’Italia is far from over, with several mountain stages still to come in the final week.
Hi, thanks for this nice post but : why don’t you show a Pellizzari picture ?
The big surprise in this Giro is Simon Philip. He has had a very strong tendency of a decreasing level in basically all the GTs he’s ridden. And he has never improved through the race. If he holds this level, he could finally redeem his epic collapse from 2018.