Richard Carapaz: 'Tell me where the hardest part of the climb is, I’ll go there' 🇪🇨
EF Education’s Giro stage winner is a pure racer, and a throwback to the pre-marginal gains interpretation of racing
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With 9.1km to go, the last of EF Education-EasyPost’s domestiques peels off the front, and without hesitation, Richard Carapaz zigzags to the other side of the road with a vicious acceleration.
Rafal Majka is on the Ecuadorian’s wheel in a flash, but Carapaz, in and out of the saddle, continues to press on, cutting through the early break and quickly establishing a slender buffer on the slopes of Pietra di Bismantova. This was an attack based on pure instinct, modified in-race tactics, and a rider willing and capable of going long.
Rewind an hour, and it looked as though stage 11 of the Giro d’Italia would end in a truce between the leading GC riders, as a five-man group established a near three-minute margin over the maglia rosa.
At that moment, EF’s main priority appeared to be based around protecting Carapaz and guiding him to the finish with the rest of the GC contenders.
Then Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen hit the front and made it an almost one-man mission to bring the break to within touching distance of the peloton, and all of a sudden, the chance to win the stage was back on.
EF Education-EasyPost fought to be at the front of the reduced peloton on the technical run-in to the final climb of Pietra di Bismantova in order to give Carapaz the best possible launchpad, and although it looked as though the 31-year-old had attacked too early, he valiantly hung on for his first Giro stage win in six years.
The win was a significant moment in Carapaz’s career and EF’s season. The American squad had only won three times on the men’s side coming into the Giro, but Carapaz had been afforded time and space to best prepare for this year’s Giro. He was allowed to travel home to Ecuador earlier in the spring to build on his form, and that trust was rewarded with a win that once again demonstrated the rider’s class and verve on the bike.
“He’s an out-and-out racer. If you look at all the times that he’s succeeded, even on GC, he’s done it on proper racing instinct,” EF Education-EasyPost’s sports director, Tom Southam, told us this morning.
“When he was third at the Tour, obviously winning the Giro, last year at the Vuelta when we had that raid into Granada, he’s a racer’s racer, and when he’s good, he’s got an extraordinary engine to back it up. You have to guide him in the right direction, but ultimately, he’s just a pure racer,” Southam added.
Few people know, but Carapaz was held back from attacking earlier in the race on the stage to Tagliacozzo. The finish was eventually won by Juan Ayuso, with Carapaz finishing in a small group just behind. That decision again came down to trust and the tight relationship that the rider has with EF’s lead sports director in the race, Juan Manuel Gárate.