Arnaud Démare took his 4th and expected win in Rimini today, in a calm day in the peloton Israel and UAE looked threatening but Groupama dominantly took realms of the peloton and the Frenchman easily delivered yet another win beating Peter Sagan and Alvaro Hodeg in a fast sprint, regarding the GC everything remained the same.
Positive: Démare taking another big win and extending his lead on the points classification back up again.
Negative: Gaviria had a very good position for the sprint but looked completely gassed as he sat up mid-sprint.
The Route
Stage 12 is a continuation of the hilly stages that have a lot of possible outcomes. This one should be favoured by the breakaway specialists, it's quite a hard day to work and chase back in the peloton but the hardest climbs come halfway through the stage. It's a bit of a rollercoaster ride, lots of ups-and-downs into Cesenatico.
Perticara is the first of the main climbs for sure in this stage, it summits with 82.5Km to go.
And with 63Km to go comes the hardest climb of the day, in these two climbs there should be important attacks between the breakaway members, decisive ones, the climb is hard enough to make differences with strong attacks.
And the final climb of the day is San Giovanni in Galilea and it summits with 30Km to go, it's a bit hard and can be the sprinboard for further attacks and if it comes to a peloton finish it can be a final dash for some stage-hunters to give it their shot.
The finish in Cesenatico is far from technical, good roads to chase if it's necessary, not good roads for someone to go solo and try to keep their gap over a group.
The Weather
Coldish, cloudy and a bit windy, from south or west it changes a lot during the day, it will rain quite a lot overnight and there may be small rain during the stage and for sure the roads will be wet, can be quite dangerous, in the minimum a fight for position will happen several times during the stage.
The Favourites
The stage is quite hard, there's some GC riders who could be eyeing a raid however it's not really that likely as the harder climbs come far from the finish and I reckon most will be saving themselves for the final week, it should then be a day for the breakaway, not only because of the reason I previously mentioned but really because it's a rugged roller-coaster day, with a lot of climbs, lots of strong riders looking for a stage, no clear candidate from the sprinters/climbers and the risks that may not be taken from the GC guys due to dangerous descents, I think we can all agree this is the likely scenario.
So with that said, breakaway roulette!
AG2R - Vendrame, Bouchard
Bahrain - Battaglin
Bora - Fabbro
CCC - Valter
EF - Guerreiro, Kangert
Lotto - de Gendt
Ineos - Narvaez, Castroviejo
Sunweb - Denz
UAE - Ulissi, Bjerg, Conti
Vini Zabù - Visconti
Some big names for tomorrow, it includes pure puncheurs as Ulissi and Narvaez, some climbers like the Baltics Tanel Kangert and Atilla Valter, some rouleurs like de Gendt, Denz and Bjerg and some fast finishers like Vendrame and Battaglin. Very complete list, very thorough one with lots of names that will likely target the stage and for sure the win will pop from one of them.
How the stage will be won is a big question, but for sure it suits a long-range attack maybe 30/40Km from the finish, it's a punchy stage where the break riders will be taken to the limit lots of times, a lot of tactical quality, cold head and some good technical skills on the descents will be crucial to conquer this stage.
Prediction Time
⭐ Battaglin, Valter, Guerreiro, Conti, Visconti, McNulty, Almeida, Konrad
I think tomorrow is finally the day for Thomas de Gendt. Since the beggining of the race he's shown the form for it, and if you have great form and have some near-misses you will be rewarded with a win eventually, I think the Belgian will leave the race with a win in his pocket and there may be no day more suited to him than tomorrow, specially now that he won't have the responsability of protecting Harm Vanhoucke in the GC.
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