Giro d'Italia 2024 Stage 12

May 16, 2024 Stage 12 sent the riders into the Marche to tackle the steep muri. Matteo Trentin of Tudo Pro Cycling, Roel Van Sintmaartensdijk of Intermarché-Wanty and Enzo Paleni of Groupama-FDJ were the early attackers. They were stuck at 30 seconds as attacks continued behind and caught over 30KM later with no break established. A new group of four countered, Edoardo Affini of Visma-Lease a Bike, Mirco Maestri of Polti-Kometa, Michael Hepburn of Jayco AlUla, and Simon Clarke of Israel-Premier Tech. The route turned off the coast to head inland and uphill. Julian Alaphilippe of Soudal Quickstep was the first to attack out of the peloton, bringing four riders with him. The Alaphilippe group bridged up to the four leaders to make nine at the front. Pelayo Sánchez of Movistar made a huge effort, making it to the front solo. Behind, an additional nine chasers broke clear of the peloton and were 22 seconds back over the top of the first main hill 125KM to go. The front group of ten were joined by the nine chasers, but to complicate tactics a new group of nineteen riders got away from the peloton to make 38 riders clear. With around 100KM to go, Alaphilippe and Maestri chipped off the group. Eventually the two large groups joined together to make a single chase group consisting of 36 riders. With 95KM to go, Alaphilippe and Maestri had extended their lead to two and a half minutes on the large chase group. The gap started to raise alarms and it was clear that the cohesion in the group was breaking apart. Riders started to attack out of that group and eventually Christian Scaroni of Astana, Jhonatan Narváez of Ineos, Michael Valgren of EF-Education EasyPost, Quinten Hermans of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Valentin Paret-Peintre of Decathlon AG2R, Dion Smith of Intermarché-Wanty, Gijs Leemreize of DSM-Firmenich, Matteo Trentin and Simon Clarke. Ewen Costiou of Arkéa-B&B Hotels was there originally but had a mechanical and got stuck in chase groups behind, eventually getting caught in the last 20KM. Alaphilippe and Maestri still had a minute at 55KM to go and they were working very well together. The nine were at 1 minute 20 seconds and closing on the two leaders, hitting the final wall with 11.5KM to go and 43 second lead. Maestri was dropped early in the climb but it was the ride of his life to get to that point, ending the stage in ninth place. Narváez and Hermans seperated themselves out of the chase group and crested the final climb at 40 seconds back from Alaphilippe with 10KM to go. There would be no catching the Frenchman on the fast run in to the finish. Alaphilippe celebrated an extraordinary win to complete a stage in each Grand Tour. Narváez, Hermans, Valgren, and Scaroni finished next in that order. There was little action in the GC group, coming in over 5 minutes later with no changes in the top 15.