"Like you say in Italy, it was a fucilata today," Esteban Chaves exhaled as he sat on the steps of the Orica-GreenEdge bus after the Giro d'Italia had reopened for business after the rest day with a breathless 132-kilometre leg over the Passo della Mendola and Fai della Paganella to Andalo.
That shoot-out arrived far sooner than Chaves had anticipated and ultimately cost him another 48 seconds in the general classification. The Colombian remains in second place but now trails maglia rosa Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) by three full minutes, though he is still standing in the battle for final overall honours in Turin.
"It was a very, very fast stage, with no respite. Everybody was attacking and expending a lot of energy," Chaves said. "I made a small error on the first climb but I managed to save my position on GC at the end of the day, which was the most important thing."
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There was no gentle reintroduction for riders after the rest day, as the downhill start from Bressanone only made for a particularly brisk opening hour of racing. Inevitably, the peloton fragmented upon hitting the lower slopes of the day's first climb, the Passo della Mendola, though it was notable that so many podium contenders – chief among them Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) – were prepared to go on the offensive so early in the stage.
While Kruijswijk, already bereft of support, moved himself to snuff out more or less every move, it was notable that Chaves was not responding with quite the same verve. When Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) fired off a rasping attack 500 metres shy of the summit, Kruijswijk, Zakarin and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) followed, but Chaves was caught on the wrong foot.
"It wasn't a question of not having the legs, I just left my guard down," Chaves told reporters afterwards.
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