Teammates Sepp Kuss and Jonas Vingegaard dominated the high mountains for Visma-Lease a Bike on Friday as the former claimed a historic solo victory on stage 19 of the Giro d’Italia, and the latter firmly defended his overall lead.
By winning the brutal mountain stage atop Piani di Pezzè in the Dolomites, Kuss became the 116th rider to complete the Grand Tour stage victory trilogy, with the American adding an Italian success to wins at the Tour de France in 2021 and the Vuelta a España in 2019 and 2023.
The monstrous 151km stage through the Dolomites packed a brutal 5,000m of climbing into a relentless rollercoaster of high-altitude climbs and technical descents, before finishing in the Veneto village of Alleghe.
Lidl-Trek’s Giulio Ciccone seized his chance on the final long descent, the Italian breaking free from the chasing group to establish a one-minute lead with 10km remaining. However, Kuss launched a relentless pursuit as soon as the final uphill climb commenced, catching and passing Ciccone with just over 2km left before riding clear.
Kuss crossed the finish line alone in front of thousands of cheering fans to secure the victory 13 seconds ahead of the Canadian, Derek Gee-West, of Lidl-Trek. Ciccone held off the rest of the chasers to take third, 36sec behind Kuss.
The Austrian Felix Gall of Decathlon took fourth, 39sec behind Kuss, just ahead of Vingegaard, who crossed the line with the same time in fifth.
That leaves Vingegaard with a commanding lead of 4min 3sec over Gall in the general classification.
Jai Hindley climbed into the podium places after leading Gall and Vingegaard up much of the final ascent on a decisive day in the Dolomites. The Australian finished 1min 2sec ahead of Arensman on the stage to leapfrog the Ineos Grenadiers rider into third spot where he sits 5min 4sec down on Vingegaard.
Earlier on Friday, Jhonatan Narvaez of UAE Team Emirates was forced to abandon the race due to complications from a minor incident the previous day. The team said the Ecuadorean had a small crash on Thursday during the post-stage transfer back to the team bus and the resulting discomfort was too severe to continue. Narvaez leaves the Giro with three stage victories.