Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe lost their tactical edge in the fight for the podium at the Giro d'Italia on the summit finish to Carì on stage 16, with their own pace on the front of the group dropping one of their co-leaders, Giulio Pellizzari, well before the final climb's conclusion.
By the time the Italian reached the finish, he had lost 18 minutes to the stage winner, Jonas Vingegaard, with his GC hopes completely ended five days before the race reached Rome. He started as the main Italian hope for the podium after winning the Tour of the Alps in the build-up.
"I immediately realized my legs weren't working, so I decided to give up and try to save myself," Pellizzari said, according to Tuttobici. "Of course, I'm very disappointed, but now I have two stages ahead of me to try to make up some ground, and then the last two tough stages, which at this point become crucial for securing the podium with Jai Hindley."
As the third week kicked off with a day of racing in Switzerland, a GC showdown for the stage win was guaranteed by Visma-Lease a Bike as they chased the breakaway down for almost all of the short 113km stage.
Once they reached the foot of the final 11.6km ascent to the line, though, other teams started to contribute to keeping the pace high in anticipation of the finale, notably Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
They were working for Jai Hindley and Pellizzari, who started the day in fifth and sixth overall, respectively. Curiously, however, with the blue and red jerseys moving to the front, with 10.6km to go, it was revealed to be Pellizzari who was dropping as the big victim of his team's pacing, instead of any of their main rivals.
Seemingly in a flash, he had fallen 45 seconds, then a minute behind the main pack with 9.5km remaining, as Visma moved back into control and eventually led out pink jersey Vingegaard for what would become the stage-winning attack.
Pellizzari had suffered from stomach issues at the backend of the first week, resulting in him losing big time on the summit finish to Corno alle Scale on stage 9. He steadied the ship on the second week's hardest and only big mountain day to Pila with fifth on that stage, but had clearly run out of steam on the first climbing test of the third week.
Unlike on those previous days where illness hampered him, Pellizzari appeared to be visibly empty on the long Swiss climb, with his deficit completely ballooning out on the final climb to 18:06.
Red Bull sports director Christian Pomer said, "We dreamed of getting Giulio and Jai on the podium, of maybe even trying to attack [Vingegaard], but now that won't be possible.
"On the Carì climb, we tried to pace ourselves to try and put Gall and Arensman under pressure, but shortly afterward, Giulio himself called us to say he didn't have the strength to continue and to focus our attention on Jai, and that's what we did."
He ultimately dropped 13 places overall to 19th, and now sits 22:38 behind Vingegaard. If he can recover from this shocking, poor performance, his hope will likely turn to trying to win one of the final two mountain stages from the breakaway, or simply riding as a domestique for Hindley.
The Australian finished third on stage 16 and sits fourth overall. A former Giro winner in 2022, Hindley has 33 seconds to make up on Thymen Arensman (Netcompany Ineos) in third, and 57 seconds to catch up to Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) in second, if he wants to get onto the final podium in Rome.
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