Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 19

May 30, 2025 There are just two GC days left in the Giro but there is plenty of terrain to make significant changes up and down the leaderboard. The 166KM route between Biella and Champoluc has over 4,900M of climbing. The profile looks like a sawtooth with five categorized climbs. It starts right out of the gate with the 4.5%, 11KM climb of the Croce Serra. A 25KM valley road after the descent is the longest flat road of the entire day because with 50KM in the saddle, the Col Tzecore starts and kicks off a relentless series of climbs and descents that don't stop until the finish. The Col Tzecore is 16KM at 7.7%, then it's the Col Saint Pantaléon, 16KM at 7%. The riders descend into Saint-Vincet for the Redbull Golden Kilometer and go right back up, climbing the 15KM, 7% Col de Joux. A 6KM descent into Brusson takes the riders to the start of the final climb of Antagnod which is 9.5KM at 4.5%. From there, it is only a 5KM downhill into Champoluc for the finish. The riders set off in perfect condition with warmer than average temperatures for this time of year. Georg Steinhauser of EF-Education EasyPost, Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, and Jan Tratnik of Redbull Bora Hansgrohe got a gap on the lower slopes of the Croce Serra. Mattia Cattaneo of Soudal Quickstep and Bart Lemmen of Visma-Lease a Bike came across but the attacking behind was not done. Tratnik dropped away but the four others went over the top at 150KM with a gap of 35 seconds to a bubbling peloton. Alessandro Tonelli of Polti-VisitMalta tried to bridge up on the descent but was swept up by the peloton on the valley road with 138KM to go. Steinhauser led through the first Intermediate Sprint at Pont Saint Martin with 129KM to go and a lead still of 35 seconds. As with previous days, a very large group managed to pry itself off the peloton on the valley road with 120KM to go. The chase group caught the four leaders at the base of the Col Tzecore to make around 35 riders at the front but the gap back to the peloton was just 1 minute 15 seconds. Filippo Baroncini of UAE-XRG rode the entire climb on the front of the peloton and kept the break within 3 minutes by the top at 98.5KM to go. The break increased their lead to 3 minutes 30 seconds through the Intermediate Sprint in Châtillon. The valley was getting very warm with temperatures pushing 30C (86F) and with another brutal climb of the Col Saint Pantaléon coming around the corner, the heat was becoming a serious factor. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe started riding from the bottom of the Col Saint Pantaléon. EF-Education EasyPost pitched in and the gap started to come down. Chris Harper of Jayco AlUla and Steinhauser did the majority of the pace making in the break on the climb and with 7KM to climb, there were just 9 riders remaining including Harper, Steinhauser, Louis Meintjes of Intermarché-Wanty, Igor Arrieta of UAE-XRG, Pello Bilbao and Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious, Carlos Verona of Lidl-Trek, Prodhomme, and Lemmen. Nick Schultz and Marco Frigo of Israel-Premier Tech and Steven Kruijswijk of Visma-Lease a Bike took over in the peloton and with 4KM to climb, there were fewer than 20 riders left and they had closed the gap down to 2 minutes. Prodhomme accelerated in the last kilometer of the climb and, over the top, only Verona, Tiberi and Arietta were with him. Groups came together on the short valley road and through the Redbull Golden Kilometer, Bilbao, Meintjes, and Lemmen had joined the front of the race and the peloton had increased to around 25 riders, nearly 3 minutes behind the leaders. Tiberi, Verona, and Prodhomme chipped off the front of the break through Saint-Vincent and started the climb 30 seconds ahead of the rest. Steinhauser had dropped from the break back to the peloton and was pulling at the start of the Col de Joux. Max Poole of Picnic-PostNL was the first GC rider dropped on the climb with Steinhauser and Kruijswijk doing the damage. wilco Kelderman took over from his teammate which dispatched Davide Piganzoli of Polti-VisitMalta and Adam Yates of UAE-XRG. Lemmen came back from the break and pulled for Simon Yates after Kelderman did his job. The gap to the break was coming down to just 1 minute 15 seconds with 7.5KM to climb. Prodhomme attacked to stay out front as long as possible and dropped Tiberi and Verona. When Lemmen pulled off, UAE-XRG took over with three riders ahead of Isaac del Toro. They set a pace that was hard enough to discourage attacks but easy enough for UAE-XRG to stay together. The first move that went was from Richard Carapaz of EF-Education EasyPost with just over 1KM to climb. It didn't come to anything and the group of 12 riders went over the top just under 1 minute from Prodhomme, the lone leader. Prodhomme retained his 1 minute lead at the start of the final climb to Antagnod with just over 14KM to go to the finish. Rafal Majka of UAE-XRG led the group of favorites up the shallow climb, losing second after second to Prodhomme. Carapaz broke the relative calm and attacked again with 7.5KM to go in the stage. Del Toro was right on him and the pair opened up a large gap back to the rest. Carapaz and del Toro went over the top of Antagnod 1 minute behind Prodhomme but 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the favorites. Prodhomme continued his effort and flicked through the streets of Champoluc, over the paving stones, and across the line to take his first Grand Tour stage win of his career. Del Toro beat Carapaz in the sprint to take second place with Carapaz in third. Damiano Caruso of Bahrain Victorious led the rest of the GC group in 24 seconds after del Toro and Carapaz. The top 8 in GC remained the same but the gaps are now slightly wider. Del Toro leads Carapaz by 43 seconds and Simon Yates by 1 minute 21 seconds with one final big day remaining.