Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 14

May 24, 2025 Starting in Treviso, the 195KM stage is almost entirely flat and we should see a relatively large peloton coming to the finish together, just across the border in the Slovenian city of Nova Gorica. The Intermediate Sprints take place in Morsano al Tagliamento and Talmassons with the Redbull Golden Kilometer in Manzano with 65KM to go. The route enters a hill zone with around 50KM to go. The first of two category 4 climbs up to Gonjače is 3.5KM to go at 5%. The next climb to Saver is taken on twice, the second time topping out 7KM before the finish. It is relatively steep but, being so short at just 700M, the sprinters should get over to fight for the victory. A strong group of 11 riders got away including Quinten Hermans and Fabio Van den Bossche of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Dries De Bondt and Stan Dewulf of Decathlon AG2R, Kasper Asgreen of EF-Education EasyPost, Enzo Paleni of Groupama-FDJ, Wout van Aert of Visma-Lease a Bike, Josef Černý and Luke Lamperti of Soudal Quickstep, Alex Edmondson of Picnic-PostNL, and Taco van der Hoorn of Intermarché-Wanty. Tudor Pro Cycling, Q36.5, Polti-VisitMalta, and VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè didn't want such a strong group up the road so they started to chase. The pursuit went on for the next 15KM and the catch was finally made with 174.5KM to go. A new group of five riders got away consisting of Louis Meintjes of Intermarché-Wanty, Clément Davy of Groupama-FDJ, Martin Marcellusi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Mirco Maestri of Polti-VisitMalta, and Asgreen once again. After a few kilometers of counter attacks from the peloton, they shut it down with 161KM to go through Gorgo al Monticano and the gap started to grow. With so many flat kilometers to ride, it wasn't going to be day for Meintjes so he backed out of the break and drifted back to the peloton. Visma-Lease a Bike and Alpecin-Deceuninck started to ride behind when the gap got to 2 minutes as a rain shower came across the Venetian plain that soaked the roads. The sun was back out but the gap was down to just over 1 minute as Maestri led through the Intermediate Sprint in Morsano al Tagliamento. When the bunch came through, counter attacks came from van der Hoorn again but order was restored by Alpecin-Deceuninck. A large black cloud was coming head-on and big rain drops started falling with 108KM to go as they passed through Rivignano Teor. By 15KM down the road, the rain had dried up and jackets were coming off. The gap remained pegged at 1 minute 15 seconds as Maestri nipped Marcellusi at the Redbull Golden Kilometer with 65KM to race. The break visibly started to ride harder with 58KM to go and shortly after, the peloton were all across the road to be ready for the hill zone around the Slovenian border. The fans came out in force once in Slovenia, all were lined up along every meter of flat or uphill. At the start of the climb to Gonjače, the break had extended their margin to 90 seconds. Asgreen had his breakaway companions swinging on the climb which saw Davy dropped but the gap had fallen by 20 seconds at the top. Roads continued to roll for a few kilometers before the descent but when they finally started going down, the roads were wet. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe took over at the front of the bunch and backed off to be safe. Through the city center of Gorizia, rain had made the old cobbled roads quite slippery and with 23KM to go, a crash near the front of the peloton took down a number of Lidl-Trek riders including Mads Pedersen and Giulio Ciccone and held up much of the peloton. A split formed and only about 20 riders made it through. More had joined by the top of Saver for the first ascent at 21KM to go but plenty were still chasing to get back on. Visma-Lease a Bike had almost all of their riders at the front and kept pushing on. From what we could tell, a number of the GC favorites were missing including Primož Roglič of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious. Through all of the chaos, the break retained 30 seconds as Marcellusi led the break through the finish line for one 14KM lap remaining. We got time checks at 10KM to go. The break had 23 seconds on the Visma-Lease a Bike group with Simon Yates, Isaac del Toro, and a few other GC riders. Juan Ayuso, Egan Bernal, and Roglič were chasing behind at 45 seconds and Tiberi was stuck in a fourth group at 2 minutes. The break went up and over Saver for the last time at 7KM to go with just 15 seconds. Asgreen got a small gap on the short descent and put the power down. Marcellusi and Maestri tried but they did not have the firepower to close the gap. Visma-Lease a Bike had been doing all of the work in the first chase group but were running out of riders and with 1KM to go, Asgreen still had 15 seconds which was more than enough for him to sit up and enjoy the moment, a win for the breakaway. Kaden Groves of Alpecin-Deceuninck won the sprint for second ahead of Olav Kooij of Visma-Lease a Bike. The GC would be shaken up once again after the chaos of today's stage. Del Toro extended his overall lead by 44 seconds to 1 minute 20 seconds to second place which is now Simon Yates. Juan Ayuso slipped to third at 1 minute 26 seconds. Antonio Tiberi was the big loser on the day, falling from third to eighth and dropping 1 minute 44 seconds in the GC to now over 3 minutes back. After the crash, Giulio Ciccone was able to get back on his bike and finish the stage but he is now 18 minutes back and out of the GC hunt.