No-one's safe at Monte Grappa, Alberto Contador warns: "It's one of the hardest I've ever climbed in my life, you can lose everything you've fought for"

Alberto Contador is clear that the Monte Grappa can do a lot of damage in the penultimate stage of the Giro d'Italia 2024 and that whoever has a bad day can lose places in the overall and everything they had fought for so far. In addition, he is clear that Tadej Pogacar is the favorite to win.

The Spaniard commented in Eurosport that it is one of the hardest ascents he has climbed during his career: "It is one of the Top 10 hardest ascents I have climbed in my life, in this climb you can lose everything you have fought for in the last 3 weeks". This comes as a stark reminder that the overall classification at the Corsa Rosa is far from decided, with three weeks of racing behind.

This is Alberto Contador's detailed analysis of stage 20 of the Giro d'Italia 2024 in which he makes it clear that, due to the hardness of the two climbs of Monte Grappa, he thinks that Pogacar is the big favorite to win his sixth victory in the corsa rosa:

"The twentieth stage arrives, the last chance for the riders who want to improve the general classification, we are talking about a stage with 184 kilometers, but a stage in which we climb a very hard pass, the Monte Grappa, and on top of that on 2 occasions. The first time it will start to be climbed at the 88th kilometer, but be careful because it is crowned 78 kilometers from the finish line."

"What happens, we are talking about a climb of 18 kilometers at 8.1% average gradient and has ramps of 15%. We are talking that the rider who has a bad day can lose everything he has been fighting for in the last three weeks. Downhill, back up Monte Grappa and 30 kilometers to the finish line. A lot of riders are going to try in the breakaway, but I personally believe that Tadej Pogacar is hungry for victory."