It's been a fraught 24 hours for 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Richard Carapaz at the 2025 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Giro d'Italia, but the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:EF Education-EasyPost racer has been as resilient as ever despite the challenges, and after the first big mountains te🥀st, the Ecuadorian champion is still exactly where he needs to be overall.
At the finish of Thursday's rain-soaked,𒅌 crash-filled stage to Naples and with Carapaz having fallen hard himself as well as several teammates, the mood amongst the tiny knot of grimy-faced EF racers as they grabbed recovery drinks from support staff was anything but upbeat.
But 24 hours later, as Carapaz donned a warm ra﷽injacket and got ready for the long descent back off the Tagliacozzo climb to the team bus, the EF Giro leader was in a🉐 much better state of mind.
Eighth at the summit of the climb, Carapaz came through the tough mountain challenge as the last rider home in the first group behind stage winner 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
It was true he had not gone on the attack like Colombian 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) or Giu൲lio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) on the Tagliacozzo. But after all the challenges of the previous stage, keeping his GC options more than intact on such a hard day must have felt like a victory in itself.
"Yesterday we were really lucky, there were four of us [who] wen🎐t down but nobody in parti𒉰cular was hurt as it first seemed," Carapaz, now tenth overall at 38 seconds, explained.
"This morning 🦋I woke up feeling in a bit of pain but we had the feeling it was all going to be fine.
"We knew today was a very explosive finish, and the fastest one won. But for 🎀my part, we've done v𝓀ery well."
After such a collectively difficult day on Thursday, C🍰arapaz praised the EF squad for working to keep him out of trouble on the more complicated or dangerous parts of the day, and then dropping him off in a ☂perfect position to fight it out with the other GC challengers.
"To be up there was a big point in our favour," he concluded. "We did get knocked about a bit on Thursdꦆay and we have to go on recovering. Bꩲut it didn't affect me so much as it could have, and I hope to keep heading back in the right direction."
Like all of the GC contenders, Carapaz now has to face the daunting challenge of the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:gravel roads of Tuscany on Sunday, and he then will be hoping to handle the stage 10 time trial against specialists of the calibre of 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) as best he can.
After that the race will hit the moun💝tain♊s again, where the EF star and 2019 Giro d'Italia winner will surely be much more in his element – and likely able to perform even better than he already did on the slopes of Tagliacozzo, too.
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