
- Giro d'Italia - The ultimate guide to the Italian Grand Tour - Stage 10 - Report, results, photos - Geraint Thomas: Giro d'Italia is totally different without Evenepoel - Four QuickStep riders leave Giro d'Italia as COVID-19 ravages squad - How to watch the 2023 Giro d'Italia – live streaming Hello and welcome along to our live coverage of stage 11 of the Giro d'Italia The big news this morning is that eight more riders have left the Giro. Four of them are from the Soudal-QuickStep team, who are now down to just three riders after Remco Evenepoel's exit. All of them tested positive for COVID-19, as did Andrea Vendrame (AG2R) and Stefano Gandin (Corratec-Selle Italia) this morning. Meanwhile, Jonathan Caicedo (EF) and Natnael Tesfatsion (Trek-Segafredo) are out with non-COVID illnesses. Of the 176 riders who started the Giro, only 142 remain. The riders have left the start town of Camaoire, on Italy's west coast – Tirreno-Adriatico often starts here - and are currently rolling through a long neutral zone towards kilometre-zero. This is the longest stage of the 2023 Giro, at 219km. We have three minor-category climbs on the menu, where some teams may look to hurt the purest sprinters, but a bunch sprint - with or without them - is the likeliest outcome today. Here was the lonely-looking remaining QuickStep trio just before. Full story on that here. (Image credit: Getty Images) And here's the race leader Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), ready for his second day in pink. (Image credit: Getty Images) As you can tell, the sun has not come out on this sodden edition of the Giro. It's not raining at the moment, but there are cloudy skies overhead. We're still in the neutral zone but we're not far away from kilometre-zero and the stat of the stage. Longest stage of the race 🤝 Longest neutral zone The riders turn onto the coast road at Lido di Camaiore, and that means we're about to get going. We're offThe flag is waved and we are underway on stage 11 of the Giro. Here come the first attacks. Corratec-Selle Italia and Eolo-Kometa are keen. Four riders get a gap but now an Intermarché rider jumps across and goes out in front. The Italian second-division teams are all determined to get a man up the road. Corratec-Selle Italia, Eolo-Kometa, and Green Project-Bardiani are all pinging riders off. It's Laurens Rex for Intermarché and he's alone out front as the other teams launch sporadic responses behind. Five riders sett off in pursuit and this one looks like it might go. The peloton spreads across the road. It's a super wide one, so impossible to 'block' it, as such, but it's shutting down nonetheless. The five riders - two from Corratec, one from GreenProject, Eolo, and Cofidis - make it over to Rex, and this is our six-man breakaway. This is the composition of the day's breakawayAlexander Konychev (Corratec-Selle Italia)Veljko Sotjnic (Corratec-Selle Italia)Laurens Rex (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty)Thomas Champion (Cofidis)Diego Pablo Sevilla (Eolo-Kometa)Filippo Magli (Green Project-Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) Thomas takes off his pink rain cape as some rare sunshine breaks through the clouds. The breakaway open a lead of four minutes as the peloton stops for nature breaks, but now Trek-Segafredo have come to the front of the bunch to control things. Here's a first shot of our breakaway. (Image credit: Getty Images) And here's where it was formed, on the coast road by the Tyrrhenian Sea. (Image credit: Getty Images) Three teams are combining to control things in the peloton: Astana, Movistar, and Trek-Segafredo. - Astana are here for Mark Cavendish, who has shown small flashes but hasn't had a clear run at the line yet.- Movistar are working once again for Fernando Gaviria, who might like the look of the right-hand bend with 400 metres to go, given he's fond of a long-range surprise.- Trek-Segafredo are here for Mads Pedersen, who has already won a stage and was fastest yesterday, even if it was only for fourth place. Other big contenders for the victory today...- Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious), the stage 2 winner and wearer of the maglia ciclamino as leader of the points classification. He's just on his way back to the bunch after a mechanical problem or nature break. - Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), the stage 5 winner who likes the hillier sprint days. And, finally, some outsiders...Arne Marit (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty)Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla)Marius Mayrhofer (Team DSM)Alberto Dainese (Team DSM)Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates)Simone Consonni (Cofidis)David Dekker (Arkéa-Samsic)Niccolo Bonifazio (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty)Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ)Filippo Fiorelli (GreenProject-Bardiani-CSF) Fancy some full-screen pics of some rather special Colnagos? Will Jones has this spectacular gallery from his recent visit to Colnago HQ. Eleven historic Colnagos from the company archives (Image credit: Will Jones) The breakaway have seen their advantage fall to three minutes. It's a pretty tight leash for a stage that still has 175km left to run. Milan's Bahrain Victorious have sent a rider towards the front, while Jumbo-Visma and UAE are now massed behind those peloton-pullers, with Ineos Grenadiers dropping back recently. 50km down and our six-man breakaway have a decreasing lead of 2:40 over the peloton. We're just over 10km from the first intermediate sprint, which is shortly followed by the first of our three climbs. The gap has dropped to 2:25. Intermediate sprint coming up - this one counts for both the maglia ciclamino points classification and the separate intermediate sprints competition. Here we go then, and most of them are going for it. It's between Rex and Stojnic on the line. Stojnic takes it by a wheel. Champion and Sevilla were also interested. And here comes the peloton. Bahrain are leading this out for Milan. Pedersen has his own lead-out. It's Pedersen vs Milan. No one else is bothering. They both open with 100 metres to go, and it's Milan who takes it. Milan and now Pedersen drift back to the peloton. 2:20 is the gap between break and bunch. Intermediate sprint 1 results1) Veljko Stojnić (Team Corratec-Selle Italia) - 12 points for the points classification, 10 points for the intermediate sprints classification 2) Laurenz Rex (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) 8 pts, 6 pts 3) Diego Pablo Sevilla (Eolo-Kometa) 6 pts, 3 pts 4) Thomas Champion (Cofidis) 5 pts, 2 pts 5) Filippo Magli (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) 4 pts, 1 pt 6) Alexander Konychev (Team Corratec-Selle Italia) 3 pts 7) Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) 2 pts 8) Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) 1 pt