OFFICIAL Stage 17 Results

[Laurens De Jong]

Hello, Giro d’Italia Gamers!

 

STAGE Grade: A-

 

I rate today’s stage an A. All that was missing from today’s stage was any impact to the general classification. Everything else was as good as it gets. I gave four stars to the surprise factor of this stage because, yeah, on the one hand we knew this would be a day of chaos; so the unpredictability was predicted. But it was still unpredictable. I mean, Damiano Caruso third? Wait, what? And so on.

 

Route: 5/5         GC: 1/5             Tactics: 5/5       Sprint: 5/5         Surprises: 4/5

 

 

There’s a cycling adage in Belgium that I can’t quite translate. “Whoever has strong legs must dare to show them” says Google Translate and I can’t argue with that. Doesn’t have the same ring to it, but okay.

 

Michael Valgren must have read that Belgian phrase somewhere. We could all see he had strong legs. When Einer Rubio and Damiano Caruso attacked, a few kilometers from the finish, I could not believe that I saw Valgren hanging on. Watch it on YouTube, 1,600 meters from the finish. Caruso goes, only Rubio can follow, everyone else gets dropped — including the pure climber Igor Arrieta.

 

But not Valgren. Caruso and Rubio must have thought, “we don’t know how we didn’t drop him, but let’s not worry about him.” But I thought, “he has strong legs, he must dare to show them.”

 

And he did! A classic move. Five riders who were probing each other with short attacks, and just as they all sit up, the sixth rider attacks from behind. It’s an unstoppable move. The moment he went, he had won stage 17 of the 2026 Giro d’Italia. Who dares wins.

 

A bit about Valgren. He was a promising young rider a decade ago. Won two classics in 2018, the Omloop and Amstel-Gold. He faded a bit after that, and it all came down to a crushing end in a catastrophic crash in the Dépêche du Midi stage race. An unimportant race that nearly cost him everything: he separated his pelvis and ruptured his ACL, his MCL, and the meniscus in his knee. Cycling is dangerous, kids!

 

After that crash, the candle went out. The passion had gone, he wanted to quit cycling.

 

That was in June, and the following April he was back racing. His wife, a licensed therapist, helped him process the trauma of the crash. His son made a Pokéball to inspire him in the Tour de France. A few decent finishes in the 2024 Giro d’Italia, eighth in the 2025 Strade Bianche. It looked like it was the old Valgren again and today he won for the first time since that crash. A good story. He held up that Pokéball today as he crossed the finish line. Proving once more that there is crying in cycling.

 

Why did he win, and not the stronger Rubio, Caruso, or Arrieta? His own words: “I'm actually quite slow. My maximum peak power is ridiculously embarrassing to be honest, so this is my move, and when I have good legs I'm pretty good at it.” What he’s saying is: whoever has strong legs must dare to show them.

 

Caruso and especially Rubio made the mistake of not doing the same thing on their turf. The steepest grades of the climb. I know it’s easy to say, I don’t have to do the work. But their only chance today was to drop everyone on the steep part. If you can still breathe once it levels off, you’ve not done enough. If I’m their team boss, I would throw a fit — their only job was to get past the steepest part alone. If you failed at that, I don’t care that you can still breathe, you’ve lost the race and that’s all that matters.

 

My riders would not like me as their team boss. But cycling is suffering, and it’s a hard hard sport. For hard men. Like Valgren.

 

So I’m a little disappointed in Rubio, a little less in Caruso who seemed at the limit. But happy for Valgren, and happy for us cycling fans.

 

I was happy anyway because the final kilometers led past the Andalo side of the Paganella – Andalo ski resort. There you find the Baby Express ski lift, the shortest 10-person gondola lift I have ever seen. Just 400 meters, it barely takes a minute to ride it. It replaced a much more reasonable fixed-grip two-seater in 2023. Leitner built it and acknowledges it’s special. The “shortest lift Leitner has ever built,” it is “designed specially for ski schools to use.” There’s a picture on their website of dozens of little Italian third-graders tumbling out of the gondolas.

 

There was, of course, a lot more that happened today. I want to go back to the intermediate sprint, just because I mentioned it yesterday. “An intermediate sprint that is really a categorized climb,” I said, and it was. Jhonatan Narváez sprinted to maximum points there, putting himself in the Maglia Ciclamino. But Giulio Ciccone was full-on in his wheel. A classic move: pretend to sprint for the points, but then keep going. Ciccone and Narváez were favorites for the stage. I bet they talked before this point. “I’ll go for the points, you follow, let’s drop the rest of the breakaway.” It was a nice plan, but it didn’t work. They weren’t strong enough. You can dare to show your legs all you want, if they’re not strong enough, you can’t win.

 

A chaotic stage deserved a chaotic breakaway, and that is what we got. The number of Polti-VisitMalta riders in the breakaway that seemed to succeed was zero. A regrettably low number.

 

I regretted that, but what’s more: Mattia Bais and Allessandro Tonelli regretted it even more. Because they have a team boss who is just as mean as I would be. He got on the radio and told them: if you don’t bridge to that breakaway, I don’t care if you can still breathe or not.

 

They had to make up 25 seconds. That doesn’t sound like a lot, they managed about 60 km/h. But in those 25 seconds the breakaway was able to move ahead at a similar speed, so in reality, it can take ten, twenty, thirty minutes to bridge that gap.

 

If they bridge it. And they might not have — their effort prompted the peloton behind them to chase them and the vanguard of that peloton merged with our Polti riders, and the resulting schism formed the final breakaway.

 

Success then, for Bais and Tonelli. Tonelli sprinted for the first KOM, doing enough to finish third in the KOM classification of the day: 200 euros!

 

My Belgian commentator identified the rider as Bais, by the way. I could not tell the two apart. Even when they were riding together to bridge to the breakaway, they looked identical. So we’ll never know. And don’t assume that RCS, the organizer, identified Tonelli correctly. At the Red Bull KM sprint in stage 15, RCS classified Filippo Magli in fourth place — while we with actual eyes could all see it was his teammate Martin Marcellusi. I have lodged a protest with the organizers; I’ll let you know how that goes.

 

But regardless: today, Bais finished 17^th and Tonelli 21^st. Outside the UCI points, Bais got 276 euros for his classification but Tonelli was the first riders without prize money. He was nearly a minute behind Enric Mas, he couldn’t have done any better.

 

Watch the final kilometers HERE.

Watch the TNT Sports highlights HERE.

Read the TNT Sports report HERE.

 

Spoiler alert: again, the only change in the standings was Team Amalia and Team Charles trading places.

 

A very small points day today. Team Charles won the stage, thanks to Aleksandr Vlasov. Most points from the stage, most points overall, and just like about half the teams, two riders in the Top-25. Nobody had more.

 

Second place, with most points from classifications, for Team Ansel. Next were Team Sam in third and Team Grace in fourth, and Team Hugo in fifth.

 

The others missed boat today, a very small boat to begin with. Team Amalia sixth, Team Tadej seventh, Team Felix eighth.

 

If you enjoyed stage 17, you’ll have to tune in for stage 18 on Thursday. That race will be very similar to today’s. The winner will come from a breakaway, but it won’t be a pure climber like today. The final climb is steep — 12.1%; but it’s also short, just 1.2 kilometers. There’s absolutely no reason to believe Jhonatan Narváez will finish lower than first. But I said that about today’s stage, too.

 

Standings after stage 17:

 

Rank	Name	Points	WAS	MOVES
1	Team Grace*	2410	1	0
2	Team Ansel*	2318	2	0
3	Team Sam*	2169	3	0
4	Team Tadej*	2054	4	0
5	Team Charles*	2010	6	1
6	Team Amalia*	1974	5	-1
7	Team Hugo*	1887	7	0
8	Team Felix*	1663	8	0

 

Standings after stage 17 (including adults):

 

Rank	Name	Points	WAS	MOVES
1	Team Grace*	2410	1	0
2	Team Ansel*	2318	2	0
3	Team Fran	2291	5	2
4	Team Amelia	2269	3	-1
5	Team Julie	2230	4	-1
6	Team Doug	2208	6	0
7	Team Sam*	2169	7	0
8	Team Kent	2124	8	0
9	Team Laurens	2118	10	1
10	Team Craig	2115	9	-1
11	Team Corsa	2100	11	0
12	Team Tadej*	2054	11	-1
13	Team Paul	2028	14	1
14	Team Charles*	2010	14	0
15	Team Amalia*	1974	13	-2
16	Team Adam	1913	17	1
17	Team Zach	1907	16	-1
18	Team Hugo*	1887	18	0
19	Team Jake	1876	19	0
20	Team Rob	1835	20	0
21	Team Felix*	1663	21	0
22	Team Kari	1615	22	0
23	Team Kate	1551	23	0
24	Team Jonwaine	1461	24	0
25	Team Roslyn	567	25	0

 

Complete breakdown of points from stage 17:

 

Name	STAGE RESULTS	PINK JERSEY	PURPLE JERSEY	BLUE JERSEY	WHITE JERSEY	POINTS/CLASS	TOTAL	PREVIOUS	CUM. TOTAL
Team Amalia*	6	32	6	8	0	46	52	1922	1974
Team Ansel*	19	44	6	12	0	62	81	2237	2318
Team Charles*	41	40	7	8	0	55	96	1914	2010
Team Felix*	0	27	0	8	3	38	38	1625	1663
Team Grace*	13	40	6	12	3	61	74	2336	2410
Team Hugo*	19	39	2	12	0	53	72	1815	1887
Team Sam*	30	30	11	9	0	50	80	2089	2169
Team Tadej*	0	36	2	8	3	49	49	2005	2054

 

Complete breakdown of points from stage 17 (including adults):

 

Name	STAGE RESULTS	PINK JERSEY	PURPLE JERSEY	BLUE JERSEY	WHITE JERSEY	POINTS/CLASS	TOTAL	PREVIOUS	CUM. TOTAL
Team Adam	39	37	2	12	0	51	90	1823	1913
Team Amalia*	6	32	6	8	0	46	52	1922	1974
Team Amelia	13	44	2	12	0	58	71	2198	2269
Team Ansel*	19	44	6	12	0	62	81	2237	2318
Team Charles*	41	40	7	8	0	55	96	1914	2010
Team Corsa	37	40	6	12	0	58	95	2005	2100
Team Craig	13	31	6	12	3	52	65	2050	2115
Team Doug	19	44	2	12	3	61	80	2128	2208
Team Felix*	0	27	0	8	3	38	38	1625	1663
Team Fran	68	36	6	12	0	54	122	2169	2291
Team Grace*	13	40	6	12	3	61	74	2336	2410
Team Hugo*	19	39	2	12	0	53	72	1815	1887
Team Jake	69	29	2	12	0	43	112	1764	1876
Team Jonwaine	0	31	0	8	0	39	39	1422	1461
Team Julie	0	44	6	8	0	58	58	2172	2230
Team Kari	37	32	0	12	0	44	81	1534	1615
Team Kate	13	23	1	9	0	33	46	1505	1551
Team Kent	6	44	2	8	0	54	60	2064	2124
Team Laurens	26	33	6	8	1	48	74	2044	2118
Team Paul	61	36	6	11	0	53	114	1914	2028
Team Rob	19	40	2	12	0	54	73	1762	1835
Team Roslyn	30	0	3	0	0	3	33	534	567
Team Sam*	30	30	11	9	0	50	80	2089	2169
Team Tadej*	0	36	2	8	3	49	49	2005	2054
Team Zach	13	29	6	12	0	47	60	1847	1907

 

Pedalare! Pedalare!

 

-Laurens.