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A wildcard rider’s first professional win comes on Giro’s famed Zoncolan

Lorenzo Fortunato writes name in the record books with legendary victory

Photo by: Sirotti
May 22, 2021
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Although there was some GC skirmishing on the Zoncolan summit finish stage of the Giro d’Italia, the favourites were eclipsed by Lorenzo Fortunato of Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso’s wildcard team EOLO-Kometa taking his first professional win atop the famed mountain. Alberto Contador promised to ride the 1500 km from Madrid to Milan if his team won a Giro stage, so he should start looking at maps. Egan Bernal was the best of the GC riders once more and padded his lead atop the GC. Simon Yates pulled himself into second place but he’s a minute and a half in arrears.

The Course

The 205-km route offered three categorized climbs: a pimple of a Cat. 4, the Cat. 2 Forcella di Monte Rest and the mighty Zoncolan, 14.1 km of 8.5 percent, with the final 3.5 km a knee-shattering 12.1 percent. Chris Froome was the last rider to crest Monte Zoncolan in the Giro d’Italia.

A breakaway containing Bauke Mollema, Fortunato and the youngest rider in the race, Andrii Ponomar, surged away early, and by the midway point of 205 km it looked like it might contain the day’s winner. Ineos, Movistar and Astana-Premier Tech all took turns driving the peloton.

Astana-Premier Tech kept on the front going onto Forcella di Monte Rest and riders started to be spat out the back. In the breakaway, Mollema’s teammates did the driving. Mollema tipped over first, and along with the maximum points on the earlier Cat. 4, the Dutchman jumped up to third in the mountains classification.

Astana-Premier Tech split the peloton on the descent, with Alexandr Vlasov and three teammates and Egan Bernal and a teammate getting free of the others. Yates, Hugh Carthy and Emanuel Buchmann were in a second group and Remco Evenepoel was in a third group.

A dangerous split on the descent of the Cat. 2 included Vlasov and Bernal.

The three groups came back together. The breakaway had a 5:00 gap with 37 km remaining.

Zoncolan

The top of the mountain was enveloped in cloud.

It seemed likely that the day’s winner was in the breakaway. After it thinned out a bit, Jan Tratnik (Slovenia/Bahrain-Victorious) was the first to push on. Astana-Premier Tech continued to drive the peloton.

Ineos took over the pace making, while up front Fortunato found Tratnik’s wheel. The leading duo hit the very steep final 3 km with a 45-second gap on four chasers including Mollema and 4:00 on the favourites group.

Fortunato left Tratnik behind with 2.2 km to ride. Tratnik kept the Italian in his sights, but almost came to a standstill in his chase.

Yates attacked and only Bernal could react. Buchmann tried to reach them, but it would be third place Damiano Caruso who would come the closest. Bernal then left the Brit’s company, finishing 11 seconds ahead. All of Astana-Premier Tech’s work was for naught, as Vlasov fell off the podium.

Sunday’s hilly stage visits Slovenia and includes three circuits with a Cat. 3 climb.

2021 Giro d’Italia Stage 14
1) Lorenzo Fortunato (Italy/EOLO-Kometa) 5:17:22
2) Jan Tratnik (Slovenia/Bahrain-Victorious) +0:26
3) Alessandro Covi (Italy/UAE-Emirates) +0:59
111) Antoine Duchesne (Canada/Groupama-FDJ) +35:35

2021 Giro d’Italia GC
1) Egan Bernal (Colombia/Ineos Grenadiers) 58:30:47
2) Simon Yates (Great Britain/BikeExchange) +1:33
3) Damiano Caruso (Italy/Bahrain-Merida) +1:51
4) Alexandr Vlasov (Russia/Astana-Premier Tech) +1:57
5) Hugh Carthy (Great Britain/EF Education-Nippo) +2:11
144) Antoine Duchesne (Canada/Groupama-FDJ) +2:51:38