Good afternoon, and welcome back to Cycling Weekly's live coverage of the key stages of the 2025 Giro d'Italia. Today's stage 16 is a big one - almost 5,000 metres of climbing with four categorised climbs, including the summit finish at Passo di San Valentino. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is still in pink, but this will be a big test for his overall victory credentials.
It's raining at the start in Piazzola sul Brenta, which I'm going to say is not ideal for the riders tackling today's stage. Procyclingstats has this as the hardest stage of the race, so don't miss a minute!
Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) will be riding today, despite losing time on Sunday's stage 15 - the mountains will be a real test to see whether the Slovenian still has a part to play in this race.
And they're off! Kilometre 0 has passed, and that's stage 16 begun.
There are riders trying to get up the road in the pouring rain, but the rain jackets don't make it particularly easy to identify who...
On the menu today: the Carbonare (12.9km at 4.9%), Candriai (10.1km at 7.5%), Santa Barbara (12.6km at 8.3%), and then finally the Passo di San Valentino (18.1km at 6.2%). Easy!
198km to go: Every move is being shut down for now. I think it's going to be one of those days. The rain is incessant, and I would simply stay inside if I was riding today.
Two non-starters to talk you about today: Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) and Milan Fretin (Cofidis) have both been pulled by their teams. With the weather and the climbing, you can imagine why.
Small crash in the bunch, with Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) and Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal Quick-Step) hitting the deck. Garofoli already has three broken ribs, apparently, so this is not the start to the day he wanted.
192km to go: There are a few attackers up the road, including Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers), Josef Černy (Soudal Quick-Step), Xabier Mikel Azparren (Q36.5 Pro Cycling). There are seven of them at the moment, but it's difficult to tell who exactly...
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) is one of those up the road. Now, that's exciting.
188km to go: There is a break now, with 30 seconds. The seven men are: Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost), Lorenzo Germani (Groupama-FDJ), Josh Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers), Jon Barrenetxea (Movistar), Josef Černy (Soudal Quick-Step), Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Xabier Zaparren (Q36.5 Pro Cycling.
The peloton is just passing through Sandrigo, the home of Pippo Pozzato, the former Italian pro. It looks nice, but wet.
39 seconds for that group now. It's significant to see both Tarling and Van Aert in there, ready to act as potential satellite riders for when the climbs start arriving later for Egan Bernal and Simon Yates.
It was remiss of me to not include Rafferty in that too. The Irishman's teammate, Richard Carapaz, will almost inevitably try and attack Isaac del Toro later.
CRASH!
Josh Tarling has gone down hard on a wet roundabout. This does not look good at all for the Welshman.
Confirmation through that Tarling has immediately abandoned the race.
Hard to know exactly what happened there. Tarling's bike just slid out from underneath him on the wet roads, he then slammed into the barrier at the edge of the roundabout. That looked like a pretty heavy impact so fingers crossed that he's ok.
Meanwhile Primož Roglič was very downbeat at the start this morning.
The Slovenian endured a difficult day in the mountains on Sunday and was physically unable to ride his bike during Monday's rest day.
The gap to the breakaway now stands at 1:26 as the leaders get closer to the first climb of the day.
The first ascent isn't too tricky. It's a category two climb to Carbonare, with the average gradient sitting at 4.6% across 12. 9 kilometres.
Ineos have just shared this update on Tarling on X. Keep an eye out for more updates from the team on Tarling's condition later today.
Almost two minutes now for the break as Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) tries to jump across.
Bilbao has sparked a solid counter move there. The Spanish rider has pulled several others into the second group on the road with him, including Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana).
The peloton is now almost three mins down on the first group. Wout van Aert has just led the six-men at the head of proceedings onto the Carbonare climb.
18 riders are in that second group.
David Gaudu is in there for Groupama-FDJ, as is Kim Heiduk (Ineos)
A whopping eight riders in that group are Italian!
The Bilbao group are 1:41 behind the Van Aert led attackers.
The leaders are gradually pulling off their wet weather gear as they push on up the climb. You can now see Darren Rafferty's beautiful Irish champion's jersey that was hidden underneath his black team-issue Rapha rain jacket.
EF have just pulled Richard Carapaz to the side of the road. It looks like they are now completely changing his radio after it got drenched in the rain. He's been given a new jacket too. Not ideal at all for the Ecuadorian but if they were going to make that change then they needed to get that done now.
The peloton have really sat up and the gap to the leaders is now 6:18
Everyone seems pretty stress free at the moment which is why EF were able to get that radio changed for Carapaz relatively quickly in the end.
The Bilbao group has now joined the six leaders at the head of the race. There are now 24 riders in one large group up ahead. XDS Astana did some excellent work to make contact there, with Fausto Masnada and Fortunato pulling the group across.
Here's Isaac del Toro earlier on this morning. Will he be duking it out for a stage win later this afternoon?
Lorenzo Fortunato took the maximum 18 points on offer at the top of the Carbonare to extend his lead in the mountains classification.
The break are now well into the descent which looks treacherous indeed.
The break has broken up a little on that descent. Not really a surprise as the roads are absolutely soaked. Riders will be aiming to keep as safe as possible as they get off the mountain and back down for some brief respite in the valley road.
Ouch! One of the two riders from the Bardiani team has just slid out on a wet corner and gone right off the road and into a ditch.
He appeared to slide right into a side road there. Let's hope the doctor's car is nearby as that looked really unpleasant.
Pello Bilbao is hanging right off the back of the break as they continue to go downhill so that he avoids any incidents as has plenty of space around him.
100km to go: The riders are now into the last 100km of the stage. The breakaway's advantage stands at eight minutes exactly.
The average speed today is 43kph, but that's about to fall away as the breakaway hits the lower slopes of the category-one Candriai climb.
Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) are reported to have crashed.
Roglič is now jumping in the team car, according to Blythe. This looks like race over for the 2023 Giro winner.
90km to go: Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has dropped off the back of the peloton. He's now 30 seconds behind the pink jersey group, and relying on assistance from his team car to get back in the bunch.
We've got an update on Alessio Martinelli, the Bardiani rider who crashed into a ditch.
Panic over for Ayuso. The Spaniard is back in the peloton.
87km to go: The breakaway's gap has fallen from eight to six minutes on the climb to Candriai. Ineos Grenadiers can take credit for that, having pressed the pace for a lot of the climb.
After a spate of crashes and three DNFs (Tarling, Roglič and Martinelli), the skies have finally cleared at the Giro d'Italia.
71km to go: Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) is the latest rider to hit the deck. He doesn't look hurt, but this is proving to be an attritional day for the GC favourites.
Riders are pulling off warmers now and shaking their legs out in the valley roads. The climbs aren't over yet though, there's some real monsters left to come.
66km to go: UAE are pacing at the front of the peloton in the sunshine, with Simon Yates and Visma the next team in the bunch.
Bernal is nearly back in the bunch. He's with the Ineos team car currently taking on a bottle as he makes his way back in.
Del Toro has just stopped to get some help taking some wet shoe covers off. It's amazing, really, how quickly mechanics work when they're stopped with a rider at the roadside. They really are the unsung heroes on a lot of teams.
As things stand, the breakaway has a real chance of victory today. The gap has gone out to nearly ten minutes as the penultimate climb of the day approaches.
Big attack from Fortunato in the breakaway with 11km of the Santa Barbara remaining.
Bilbao manages to go across with him, along with Jefferson Cepeda (Movistar)
Meanwhile in the peloton, Visma and EF are on the front and upping the pace. Will Carapaz and Simon Yates try something soon?
Whatever happens behind them, I'd say the breakaway are set for the stage win today with this kind of margin. Unless something crazy happens back down the road, I can't see anyone bridging across with the tempo still what it is.
EF have nearly all their riders on the front of the main field now and things are getting interesting. Juan Ayuso (UAE Emirates) has dropped out of the group of favourites and is nowhere to be seen, underlining UAE's decision to go for victory in this Giro d'Italia with Del Toro.
Tudor Pro Cycling clearly fancy this with Michael Storer too, the Australian climber is the sort of rider who could make a difference here.
That injection of pace from EF has cut the gap to the breakaway to six minutes. This might not be over yet in terms of the stage victory.
ATTACK:
40km to go: Storer has launched a big one! That was a stinging acceleration but I'm not sure it's enough for now.
Juan Ayuso is nearly a minute behind the GC group. It really is all over for the Spaniard at this Giro. Adam Blythe has just said from the TNT Sports motorbike that the Spanish climber is looking really angry on the bike. Blythe says he's banging the handlebars and airing his frustration.
This is not a good day for Egan Bernal now either. The Colombian is getting dropped from the GC group.
Simon Yates has nearly shut down that move from Storer and Max Poole (Picnic-PostNL) singlehandedly.
Ayuso is now more than two minutes behind Del Toro on the road.
37 km to go: It's 4:48 now between the GC group and the breakaway.
Bernal has nearly made it back into the GC group, he's not done yet.
32km to go: Fortunato took the maximum points on offer again at the summit of the Santa Barbara. He's got that jersey wrapped up already at this Giro.
The San Valentino is now beginning. Voisard (Tudor Pro Cycling) is the first man from the break to begin the climb.
Wout van Aert dropped back down the road a short while ago and is now back in the GC group, ready to pace Yates before he goes for it.
16 km to go: It's just 31 seconds for Voisard at the moment. More notably, the GC group are almost five mins back down the climb.
Unless the attacks start soon, the stage appears to be the breaks to contest today.
Scaroni ups the pace in the break as he tries to get across to Voisard.
Voisard has now been caught by the Scaroni led group.
Van Aert is really driving the GC group now. The Belgian has almost dropped the leader's advantage to under four minutes with 12 km left to race. Adam Yates has almost dropped out of the back of the group due to the pace being set by the Visma man.
Van Aert is pushing well over 500 watts here, a remarkable effort.
Meanwhile at the front of the race, Lorenzo Fortunato has jumped over the top of Scaroni and is trying to get away from the leaders. Scaroni is with his teammate but Cepeda from Movistar is glued onto the Italians.
Scaroni has now dropped his team leader and Cepeda.
Astana have absolutely worked over Cepeda on this climb, with both of the Italians repeatedly hitting the Ecuadorian with attacks. Scaroni is long gone and Fortunato has now dropped him too.
Fortunato has now caught Scaroni. We look set to have an Astana 1-2 for the stage win today.
8km to go:
The duo are working cohesively together here. Both are excellent climbers in their own right and might have enough if they continue like this. Cepeda is 10 seconds back.
With Roglic out of the race, Giulio Pellizzari has been given licence to go on the attack for Red Bull and has put 45 seconds into the GC group.
ATTACK IN THE GC GROUP:
Simon Yates attacks! He's pulled Carapaz (EF) and Del Toro with him.
The Bury-born rider waited for the steeper ramps to make a move.
Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) was trying to pull the rest of the group back across but Yates has gone again.
Now Carapaz has gone! That's a big attack and he's got a gap.
Nobody can respond to that.
Yates is with Del Toro for now, Gee is also still present with the GC riders.
Wow! Carapaz has taken another 25 seconds on Del Toro now. Del Toro and Yates, dare I say it, look like they're struggling.
Carapaz has a vast gap and it's growing
The Ecuadorian has almost 45 seconds now, he could ride into pink here with more than 5 kilometres still to go.
Now goes Yates!
Here's Carapaz when he went
Carapaz has reached Pelizzarri now.
Del Toro has cracked! Simon Yates has dropped him and is riding away from him!
Yates needs to ride hard here as Carapaz could end up taking pink himself, he's really on a mission here.
I don't recall seeing Carapaz look this good in a long long time. He is very much on Giro winning form here, similarly to when he won in 2019.
Del Toro is haemorrhaging time here. The Mexican is now back with Bernal and nowhere near Yates now.
I'd almost forgotten about the stage win with all of that going on.
The Astana duo, Scaroni and Fortunato, are just 500 metres from the line now. They've got a minute and a half on Carapaz at the moment.
Looks like Scaroni is going to get handed the stage win here for everything he's done for Fortunato in the fight for the maglia azzurra today
Scaroni takes the stage!
Carapaz crosses the line
Here comes Yates
Here comes Del Toro now. The Mexican made up a bit of the time he'd lost there, but was it enough to keep pink?
They're still figuring out the time gaps here, but Del Toro could have done just enough to keep the jersey. Richard Carapaz put a lot of time into Simon Yates, this Giro is shaping up to be a cracker.
We'll have a full report and reaction on the site shortly.
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