"Win the stage and wear pink" - EF set high ambitions for Giro's queen stage and Richard Carapaz' victory pursuit

The Giro d'Italia will be decided within the next 36 hours and in the fight for victory we most notably have Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz. EF Education-EasyPost don't have a collective as strong as UAE's, however the American team is aiming for overall victory as does not attempt to hide it in any way.

In an interview with Eurosport, EF's DS Juan Manuel Garate has talked about the early climbs on stage 19 such as the Col Tzecore and Col Saint-Pantaléon, two brutal ascents, but perhaps ones where there won't be much action because there will still be so much climbing afterwards:

"I think they're not going to be decisive, that the race is going to be controlled, that it's going to be controlled on those two climbs and then we have another tough first climb and I think the race is going to explode there. It's always good to know the course, it's always good to know the climbs, it's always better to recognize the terrain than not."

On the ideal scenario for the Ecuadorian: "The ideal scenario, and maybe it's not what we're looking for, is for Richie to win the stage and wear pink. But that's not exactly what we're looking for. We're going to let the race flow and let the race come to us with a high tempo on the climbs. We can talk about what's written on paper, but then things change on the road, so we'll see what the ideal scenario is for Richie."

EF would know, as Carapaz crashed during stage 16 and looked to be struggling on the penultimate climb of the day, but then put in a performance on San Valentino that almost fully cut Isaac del Toro's lead completely and put him directly on the path to overall victory if the same scenario repeats itself once again.

However Garate knows that the stage won't just be about the men directly fighting for the first places in the race, and that more riders can join the party due to the uphill start: "We've got a climb right at the start, there are guys who aren't that far back on GC who are going to get in and that's going to keep the peloton from stopping."