Ulissi sprints home to claim another win in Monselice

Diego Ulissi added to his glittering record at the Giro d’Italia with a sprint victory from a select group of favourites on stage 13 from Cervia to Monselice (192km).

With two testing categorised climbs in the final 35km, it was Valerio Conti who piled on the pressure to detach the sprinters Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) and Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) on the 9.9% average, 2km final climb which crested at 17km to go.

With only the GC favourites left in the main group, it was Brandon McNulty who took the reins in the final sprint, guiding his teammate Ulissi perfectly into the closing straight to open his sprint to deliver the 32nd win of the season for the Emirati team and cap-off a fitting team performance.

Ulissi: ”We did a great job on the final climb to break away from the sprinters and arrive in a small group. We knew that if we could keep them away we would have a chance to fight for the sprint. I have to thank the whole team who set this up perfectly : first with Conti and then with a great lead out from McNulty who set me up in the final. Since we restarted the season I am going really well and I am so happy to have won two stages, which I can add to the my previous six wins here.”

The 14th stage will be a race against the clock, with an undulating individual time trial from Conegliano to Valdobbiadene (34.1k).

 
Stage 13 results

Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) 4:22:18
Joao Almeida (Deceuninck Quick step) s.t
Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) s.t

General classification after the 13th stage

1. Joao Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep) 53:43:58
2. Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) +40’’
3. Pello Bilbao (Bahrain McLaren) + 49 ”
11. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) + 2’39 “