The 153-kilometer stage 11 saw a breakaway again prosper to the finish where Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) rode away from his fellow escapees to take the victory.

The Giro d'Italia medium mountain stage was one that Fabio Felline hoped to have another go, but when the attacks formed on the tough Passo del Trebio climb in the early part of today's race it was a group of some of the strongest climbers that gained an advantage over the top and never looked back.

Kristof Vandewalle described the crucial moment:  “At the start they went à bloc again, like every day. We were in a group of 40 with Felline and myself, but I had doubts to try and go with the 10 guys just ahead. Adriano [Baffi, director] thought we could go, but he was behind and couldn’t see how fast we were going. I told him, ‘we have no power!’

"In hindsight, I think I had the power to go, but I didn’t have the guts to go because there was still a very hard parcours ahead. Later our race was over after a technical descent when we were too far behind and the peloton split. When I saw Fabio was still there too I started pulling, but when it was only myself for 10kms I saw it was useless and I finally sat up.”

Before the breakaway separated itself from the peloton’s grasp the first intermediate sprint was contested at the 7.5-kilometer mark, and Giacomo Nizzolo sped across the line first, taking maximum points as he continues his battle for the red points jersey. 

At the start of today’s stage Giacomo Nizzolo was excited about the finishing circuits at stage end where the peloton would complete laps around the infamous Imola motorsport track, a dream for Nizzolo to be able to ride around. But when he arrived at the former F1 circuit, he wasn’t feeling the same enthusiasm he had at race start:

“Today was more a nightmare than a dream! This stage was really, really, really crazy. We started full gas and the first climbs were really steep and hard. By the time we arrived to the circuit we had a lot of pain in the legs, and I can say that this was one of the hardest stages until now.

“Still, I had big emotions when I entered the circuit as everyone knows my passion about motorbikes and cars, so for me here it was really like a dream to ride. After the finish I even went a little bit alone to check some corners!”

Trek reached sports director Adriano Baffi for his insights after another hard Giro stage:

“We tried hard to go with the breakaway, but today we did not have the level to make it,”  he reasoned. “We take each day as it comes and try and profit, but sometimes it is not possible. Again tomorrow it will be the same situation, another day to try, it could be a break or sprint with Felline. We cannot control what happens, all we can do is try 100 percent each day.

“Really our big target day is Friday where we can really expect to do something. This is what we have and we knew this going in, so we look tomorrow again, then Friday, and even Saturday’s time trial. So we still have three days that we can still hope to have something.”