Stage 11 of the Giro d'Italia was a very hard day on paper but most expected the breakaway to fight for victory. Whilst the front group did have the strength, several teams made the effort to attack the stage and Richard Carapaz has taken an impressive solo victory to gain time on his GC rivals.
A stage that looked set for a breakaway to succeed, but as was the case in stage 8 there was a very long and hard battle to get in the breakaway on the flat roads out of Viareggio. A large group went up the road before the climb to San Pellegrino, but the ascent's difficulty ended up quickly splitting the front group only to those who could hold the pace of Lorenzo Fortunato who went in pursuit of further KOM points.
Fortunato was joined, after the summit of the climb, by teammate Wout Poels, Luke Plapp, Nairo Quintana and Pello Bilbao. Formally, this became the breakaway of the day and in the peloton there was action on this climb, with the tough pace breaking the group to only a few dozen, and an attack from Egan Bernal seeing only the response from Isaac del Toro and Juan Ayuso - which later saw a few more join and eventually stalling.
It seemed as if the GC action for the day was done, taking into consideration the conservative behaviour of the peloton before this stage, but it wasn't the case. Lidl-Trek and EF Education, besides UAE Team Emirates - XRG's gap control, have pushed the pace quite a lot and have managed to bring the strong quintet back in the bottom of the final climb.
Here EF set a very sharp pace right from the base and Richard Carapaz launched an explosive attack with 9 kilometers to go with no response. An attack from Isaac del Toro shortly after exploded the group but it came back together afterwards. Carapaz rode to a stellar solo win, a very popular one, and proving his worth in the fight for the Giro win.
Isaac del Toro sprinted to second place to increase his lead over Juan Ayuso and Primoz Roglic, whilst Giulio Ciccone also took a few seconds in bonifications.
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