König regains fifth at Giro
Sunday 31 May 2015 17:06, UK
Leopold König climbed back up to fifth place overall at the Giro d'Italia after a strong performance from Team Sky on stage 19.
Leopold König climbed back up to fifth place overall at the Giro d'Italia after a strong performance from Team Sky on stage 19.
The first of a final pair of mountain tests saw the Czech climber impress as he finished ninth on the stage into Cervinia, crossing the line on the back of an elite group of favourites.
Flanked by team-mate Mikel Nieve who came home one place back in ninth, König kept a cool head to put time into rivals Yury Trofimov (Katusha) and Andrey Amador (Movistar), leapfrogging over the former into fifth overall.
The Team Sky rider found himself unable to follow a barrage of explosive attacks on the first-category summit, but settled into his own rhythm to catch and ultimately drive on the group containing leader Alberto Contador with the help of Nieve.
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With one huge mountain stage to come on Saturday König now sits 10:47 back on Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), but more importantly lies 24 seconds ahead of Trofimov.
Fabio Aru (Astana) attacked the group in the closing stages to claim an emotional solo victory. The Italian took back second place from team-mate Mikel Landa in the process, but still remains 4:37 off the maglia rosa.
Team work
"It went well today. I had team-mates alongside me for a long time," said König after the stage.
"I felt really good in the heat. I was worried about today as I didn't have a really good night last night. I was feeling almost sick from the last few stages. I'm really happy that it turned out this way and I think we did a really good job.
"We need to take a closer look at the situation now. There is one big GC stage to go but let's see what happens tomorrow."
Earlier Vasil Kiryienka was one of nine riders to push on in the breakaway. Gradually pushing out their lead to four minutes the peloton never gave the group enough of a chance, with the Belarusian finally hauled back with 37km to go.
Team Sky put men around König and headed up the second climb of the Col Saint-Pantaleon with Nieve, Sebastian Henao, Kanstantsin Siutsou and Salvatore Puccio on hand for support.
Astana continued to set a tough pace and with 10km to go solo leader Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) was caught. After a brief acceleration from Siutsou the contenders attacked, with Aru and Ryder Hesjedal (Cannondale-Garmin) pushing on to contest the stage win.
