Team Picnic PostNL animate Stage 16 as Gijs Leemreize fights from the breakaway and Max Poole climbs in GC

27th May – Stage 16: Piazzola sul Brenta – San Valentino (Brentonico)

Stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia delivered on its promise of drama and elevation, with Team Picnic PostNL playing an active role from start to finish. On a day featuring almost 5,000 metres of climbing, the breakaway was always expected to play a major role, and we had our colours at the front early on.

After an initial move of seven riders went up the road, the group was trimmed to six following a crash. Not long after, a large group of 18 – including Gijs Leemreize – bridged across, swelling the breakaway to 24 riders. Over the top of the day’s first major climb, they held a margin of over six minutes on the peloton.

As the race approached the penultimate climb, the Santa Barbara, the front group began to splinter under the pressure. Leemreize showed great legs, making the final selection of 11 riders and continuing to push the pace with his companions. Behind, in the GC group, Max Poole stayed well-positioned from the help of the team and looked comfortable as the pace ramped up.

With five kilometres to the top of the Santa Barbara, Poole launched an impressive attack from the Maglia Rosa group and briefly joined forces with Michael Storer. Though he was later reeled in on the descent, Poole’s move showed his growing confidence in the high mountains. Meanwhile, Leemreize remained in the mix up front, even as small gaps opened in the technical descent.

On the final climb, Leemreize dug deep to maintain his position in the top ten, eventually crossing the line in ninth after a huge day in the breakaway. Poole, riding his own tempo in the final kilometres, stayed resilient through multiple attacks in the GC group and finished 17th on the stage. As a result, he moves up to 13th place overall in the general classification.

After the stage, Leemreize said: “It was a really tough day today. It was wet and cold at the start, and just like almost every day, it took quite a while for a break to go clear. Since we expected it to be an important day for the general classification, we didn’t want to burn too much energy trying to be in the break. But because it took so long, at one point I saw an opportunity to go with a good group, and I took it.

We were given quite a bit of space, which was great, and I felt super strong. Especially on the penultimate climb I had really good legs and felt like I was one of the strongest. But clearly some of the others had good legs too and just a bit more left for the final climb. I tried to ride away from them steadily on the second-to-last climb, but it didn’t happen. After a few tough days last week, I feel like I’m really starting to come around now, so we’ll see what the next few days bring. With Max well-placed on GC, we’ll come up with a plan for the stages ahead.”

Poole added: “I felt pretty good when I went with Storer. It’s a shame it didn’t work out because we were really pushing hard. After that, I had to ride at my own pace for a while…but yeah, it was a tough day. I think you have to race in the moment a bit. If you don’t take risks, you won’t win anything. Maybe that cost me some legs in the final, but overall, I’m fairly happy with how today went.”

Coach Matt Winston after the stage: “Gijs had to fight for an hour to get into the break, although we didn’t fight so much — we more kept an overview. And then the breakaway ended up going on a really easy moment, probably one of the easiest breakaways Gijs will ever get into. He was pretty strong in there, he was feeling good, but it was an incredible performance from the Astana riders to take first and second. Gijs was then caught by some of the GC guys, but he still did a really nice ride. Max showed well on the second-to-last climb, then dropped a little bit on the final climb, but showed really good fighting spirit. His shape is still really good, so he then battled on for a respectable result and a move up the GC.”