It was an unexpected day at the Giro d'Italia that saw Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) lose time to Simon Yates (BikeExchange) in the overall classification after showing signs of weakness on final slopes of the climb to Sega di Ala.
Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) triumphed on stage 17 after riding into the day's early breakaway and then soloing to the summit of Sega di Ala. He has now claimed stage wins at all three Grand Tours.
Stage 17 followed the rest day and presented the peloton with a 193km race from Canazei to Sega di Ala. Martin formed part of a large breakaway that formed through the valley roads.
Also in the breakaway were Gianni Moscon (Ineos Grenadiers), Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R Citroën), Dries De Bondt (Alpecin-Fenix), Simone Ravanelli (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Luis León Sánchez (Astana-Premier Tech), Giovanni Carboni (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane), Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe), James Knox and Pieter Serry (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Matteo Badilatti (Groupama-FDJ), Jan Hirt, Andrea Pasqualon and Quinten Hermans (Intermarché–Wanty–Gobert Matériaux), Matteo Jorgenson and Antonio Pedrero Lopez (Movistar), Jacopo Mosca (Trek-Segafredo), Valerio Conti and Alessandro Covi (UAE Team Emirates).
In the main field behind, a crash saw Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Nick Schultz and Mikel Nieve (BikeExchange), and Giulio Ciccone and Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo) go down.
At the front of the race, Martin, Moscon, Pedrero and Bouchard rode to the foot of the Sega di Ala climb together, and were joined by Ravanelli and Carboni. Martin surged with 10km to go and triumphed atop the steep ascent with the stage win.
Further down the mountainside, Bernal showed his first signs of struggle as Yates launched an attack to which the Colombian couldn't respond. Bernal had support from teammate Daniel Martinez to get to the top of the climb in seventh place but he had lost 53 seconds to Yates in the overall classification.
Bernal maintained his overall lead and will wear the maglia rosa into stage 18 on Thursday. He is now 2:21 ahead of Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) while Yates moved up to third place at 3:23 back.
Watch how stage 17 unfolded in the highlights video above.
