Live updates from stage 18, Abbiategrasso to Prato NevosoViviani secures awesome foursome stage winsEmail or tweet John your thoughts 12.54pm BST Simon Yates’ Mitchelton-Scott team are leading the peloton, covering up their main man and look quite relaxed. All in control for now. 12.50pm BST The weather forecast at that hilltop finish is for heavy rain. Just as hit the sprint yesterday. The weather 120km out or so is fantastic. 12.48pm BST Great breakaways of our time? Any suggestions? Email or tweet if you have any suggestions. 12.47pm BST In the early knockings, we have a breakaway. It’s almost 12’ 30” clear. There are twelve men in there. None are GC contenders of note in there. They are Quick-Step’s Michael Morkov and Max Schachmann, Davide Ballerini and Matteo Catteneo (Androni), Christoph Pfingsten (Bora), Ruben Plaza (Israel Cycling Academy), Vyacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha), Jos van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo), Boy van Poppel (Trek), Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), Giuseppe Fonzi and Alex Turrin (Wilier).That’s a big enough to keep away, though that seems unlikely. Can’t see this being like Futuroscope in the 1990 Tour. 12.34pm BST Yesterday was a day for the sprinters, here’s our report. Related: Elia Viviani secures awesome foursome of Giro d’Italia 2018 stage wins 10.41am BST This has been trailed as a return to the mountains, but that’s actually only true of the final few kilometres of today’s 196 clicks of riding. Before that, aside from a category four 140km in, it’s pretty much on the flat, give or take the odd incline. The final climb up Prato Nevoso is 1607m high, and pretty steep, if not in the Zoncolan/Angliru category of monster climbs. Simon Yates, so strong in the mountain stages, can take more seconds out of Tom Dumoulin if he would like to try, while the Nevoso looks like the type of late ramp that Chris Froome has stormed on repeated occasions when winning his quartet of Tour de France titles. In fact, the last time a Grand Tour came up this way was the 2008 Tour, when after beginning the day in Embrun in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Aussie Simon Gerrans won the stage. Here’s The Guardian report from back then.Today, there may be a few fancying a lone breakaway, but with both Dumoulin’s Sunweb and Yates’ Mitchelton-Scott almost certainly trying to control things until as late as possible, that seems unlikely. The Sky Train, in which Wout Poels is looking in fine form, one of a number of Sky riders who rode well in the time trial on Tuesday, may be a factor, though whether Froome is in the right order to benefit is a serious issue. The plan was to ride himself into form during the race and launch himself in these last three hilly stages. Falling off in the prologue of the prologue has nixed that. And he has other issues on his mind, of course. In the post-sprint huddle at Iseo yesterday, he was asked about his salbutamol case and said this: “I want this resolved more than anyone else does, to be honest. I’d love this to be sorted out before the Tour de France, so that question isn’t there anymore.”You and us both, Froomey, old boy. Anyway, as always, it’s on with the show. Here’s the general classification. 1 Simon Yates (66hrs 39:14) 2 Tom Dumoulin (+0:56) 3 Domenico Pozzovivo (+3:11) 4 Chris Froome (+3:50) 5 Thibaut Pinot (+4:19) Continue readingread full article
