After 12 stages of early breakaways and the intense but brief emotions of the sprints, as well as long, often boring days in the saddle, the 2019 Giro d'Italia is expected to finally explode into life on the next three stages, with their mountain finishes in Ceresole Reale on Friday and Courmayeur on Saturday, and then on the steep climbs and descents of the Il Lombardia route to Como on Sunday.
Grand Tours are always long, tactical affairs but this year's Giro d'Italia, due to a number of factors, has failed to ignite. So far, the biggest drama has come from Sunweb leader Tom Dumoulin's crash, a fast stage to L'Aquila, the significant time gaps created by the time trials, and little else.
Early race leader Primoz Roglic's consistency has instilled fear in his rivals, and the Jumbo-Visma rider's time trial ability has given him a significant lead in the overall classification on his genuine overall rivals.
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The Slovenian is 4:07 down on new race leader Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) after the breakaway stayed away on Thursday's stage 12 to Pinerolo. Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) is 1:44 behind Roglic, with Trek-Segafredo's Bauke Mollema at 1:55, Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) at 2:53 and Movistar's Richard Carapaz 3:16 down on Roglic.
After his terrible time trial, Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) is a significant 3:46 behind Roglic, with Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) at 4:01, despite gaining 28 seconds on the road to Pinerolo. Carapaz's Movistar teammate Mikel Landa, meanwhile, is at 4:24, and so heads into the mountains with an even heavier handicap.
There's a real sense of despair amongst the race organisers and Italian tifosi. They're hoping that the race will finally come alive when the cork is popped and the pent-up emotion and aggression are released in the mountains. They hope that Nibali can rise to the occasion, perhaps one last time in his career, and take on Roglic, using his age and experience to crack the Slovenian with a display of courage and panache.
A testing trittico of Giro stages
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