‘Riders suffered but I had great legs' — Richard Carapaz wins Giro stage 11
The 31-year-old from Ecuador broke away with 9.1km left to bring an eighth daily triumph at a grand tour. It was his first win at any level since last year's Tour de France, where he found the 17th stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to SuperDévoluy to his liking en route to being anointed king of the mountains.
Wednesday's 186km route from Viareggio to Castelnovo ne' Monti featured a series of challenging climbs, including one at San Pellegrino in Alpe that
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘A super hard day': Heartbreak for Sarah Gigante as Tour de France Femmes challenge fades
Australia's Sarah Gigante was forced to settle for sixth place in the women's Tour de France as Pauline Ferrand-Prevot claimed victory for the hosts. Starting the day second in the GC, Gigante (AG Insurance - Soudal Team) lost ground on the Joux-Plane descent and finally finished the stage seventh. 'It was two hours of pain, heartbreak and hope all in one,' she said at the finish. Ferrand-Prevot's victory was never in doubt and she launched an attack to clinch the final stage and increase her overnight lead. The 33-year-old had put herself largely in control by winning Saturday's eighth and penultimate stage with an audacious solo breakaway on the last climb. That gave her an overnight lead of 2:37 seconds over Gigante and 3:18 over Demi Vollering. Sunday's ninth stage from Praz-sur-Arly to Chatel was a 124km trek featuring three big mountain climbs. But Ferrand-Prevot did not face any big attacks and instead launched one of her own with 6km left. The crowds cheered her all the way to the finish line and, moments later, the tears flowed as she lay on her back, exhausted but elated. Vollering was 20 seconds behind in second place and Kasia Niewiadoma followed in third place as they sprinted to the line. Earlier, Ferrand-Prevot was with Gigante, 24, and a few others when they tackled the mammoth climb up Col de Joux Plane – an 11.6km grind with a gradient of 8.5%. Gigante is known to have trouble descending at speed and was dropped on the long downhill. She could not make up the time, especially with no teammates to help her, and lost her podium spot, finishing sixth overall, six minutes and 40 seconds behind the winner. 'It was a super hard day, I was already feeling not so strong physically going up the Joux Plane,' she said at the finish. 'I was hoping to get away and have a head start before the downhill, but I was pretty much getting dropped by the top. And then of course the descent was just so hard. It was a long day out.' Sign up to Australia Sport Get a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports desk after newsletter promotion The other Australians to complete the Tour de France Femmes were Neve Bradbury (71st), Lauretta Hanson (75th), Ruby Roseman-Gannon (78th) and Emily Watts (114th). Having won Olympic gold in mountain biking and conquered the cobblestones of the Paris-Roubaix classic, Ferrand-Prevot added another line to her glittering CV with a Tour victory.
Times
4 hours ago
- Times
The ‘haunted' Venice plague island locals are turning into paradise
In a wild and remote island in the Venetian lagoon, nature provides a respite from the stresses of the tourist crush. Bushes burst with juicy blackberries, lavender hums with bees and the air is a cacophony of screeching birds. Thorny paths wind through dense woodland and past shaded glades, opening onto distant views of Venice's working class Giudecca district and Porto Marghera's industrial sprawl. 'From here, you start to have some pretty amazing views,' said Sandro Caparelli, 53, a landscape specialist who has long been a habitué of the abandoned island of Poveglia, as he takes in the panorama. A visit to Poveglia — a tight cluster of three islands, two natural and one manmade — feels closer to a rainforest expedition than traipsing along the crowded streets and canals of Venice's historic centre, 6km north by boat. There is no running water or electricity, and access comes in the form of a homemade wooden jetty. Yet residents' long-coveted dream of making the outcrop a paradise getaway is about to become a reality. The Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone) activist group plans to transform the untamed outcrop into a natural oasis open to locals and like-minded visitors alike. There will be a herb garden, pond and reception area shaded by trees. 'This is the part of the island that will remain more wild, where nature will reign supreme' says Caparelli, a founding member of the group and now the project manager overseeing the island's transformation, as he strides past bushes of thistles, pungent mint, ailanthus trees and towering oaks. The activists got the green light this month after years of court battles over stalled bureaucracy, more than a decade after first fending off a financial offer from Luigi Brugnaro, the wealthy man who is now Venice's mayor. Italy's public property agency has awarded them a six-year lease for the upper island. Their victory has become a symbol of defiance, proving that locals on the frontline of overtourism can wrest potential luxury playgrounds from the clutches of hotel developers. The burning question now is whether tourists will descend on what has remained — until now — Venice's best kept secret. 'There's a real risk,' says Caparelli, after steering his boat past privatised islands. 'Do we really want a vaporetto [water bus] with a public stop here? It's a big question.' Poveglia was first settled as early as the 5th century as a safe haven during Barbarian raids. The Venetian Republic turned it into a quarantine station for plague victims in 1793, and buildings on the central island were later turned into a psychiatric hospital. Abandoned and sealed off in the 1960s, it gained a reputation as haunted, earning nicknames such as 'the island of no return' and 'the island of ghosts'. According to local legend, plague victims were once dumped there in a mass grave. • Want to visit new Venetian island? You can't More recently, Venetians with boats have used it for illicit barbecues, full-day get-togethers and sleepovers in tents. 'My daughter was practically brought up here,' says Caparelli, kicking aside a few stray boxes attesting to recent gatherings. 'We can pass through here because we cropped it for a party,' he explains, stepping through a canopied passageway. The push to save the island began in 2014 when the state put a 99-year lease up for auction. Determined not to let their retreat go the same way as San Clemente and the newly rebranded Isola delle Rose, which have been snapped up by hospitality giants to become five-star resorts, some 200 Giudecca residents set out to raise the €20,000 needed to enter the bidding. The effort brought together a diverse range of locals including university professors, tour guides and taxi boat drivers. In just over a month, more than 4,000 donors contributed about €450,000. • Italian island goes up for sale — but locals want to buy it back The association was ultimately outbid by Brugnaro, who offered €513,000. But his bid was deemed 'inadequate', and the auction was scrapped. Poveglia per Tutti sought a shorter lease, twice taking the state to court to force a response. Horse-trading helped win over the public property agency, and the University of Verona launched a joint three-year PhD programme, now in its second year, using Poveglia as a pilot project to develop a replicable questionnaire-based system to measure the environmental and social impact of regeneration projects. 'It needs to remain a place of peace,' said Fabrizia Zamarchi, 62, the association's president, enjoying Venetian 'cicchetti' tapas in Giudecca, along a stretch of water facing the historic centre beyond. 'We will find a way to discourage the tourist groups … Poveglia must remain as it is.' Over in the historic centre, however, news of the island's transformation is getting around. 'I love history and I'm very interested in the history of Venice,' says Wyman Yip, 50, a Hong Kong-born history teacher in a Dublin secondary school. 'I read about the island, with its abandoned chapel and plague victims buried there … If I had time I'd definitely visit it.' • Picnics and concerts save secret Venice haven from builders Ga Eun Lee, 23, a visitor from Seoul, was also curious. 'It could become an attractive place,' she says after seeing pictures, 'but for now it needs a bit of care'. For Caparelli, the immediate priority is to build a solid jetty to replace the makeshift one, and the association will draw up a detailed timeline for the entire project from September. While it is not covered by the agreement, the project manager cannot help imagining Poveglia's middle island — with its crumbling former hospital shelters, rusty machinery and collapsed staircases in rooms overrun by trees — being brought back to life at some point. Yet even the immediate six-year lease could evaporate at any moment. The agreement includes a clause allowing the public property agency to terminate the concession if a serious buyer steps forward. 'If an investor came along willing to renovate the whole complex … that would clearly mean revoking the agreement,' said Angelo Pizzin, deputy director of the Veneto branch of the agency. 'We'd have no choice.'
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot storms to stage success on way to Tour de France Femmes title
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot confirmed an exuberant overall win in the Tour de France Femmes in style, with her second mountain-stage win in Châtel Les Portes du Soleil. Amid euphoric scenes, Ferrand-Prévot, gold medallist at the Paris Olympics last year, followed up her lone win on the Col de la Madeleine on Saturday with another solo exploit in the Tour's final stage. Ferrand-Prévot becomes the first French rider to win the Tour de France Femmes, 36 years after her compatriot Jeannie Longo won the Tour de France Féminin, although that race did not compare with the scale, difficulty and global renown of the latest incarnation. Suddenly, after waiting 40 years for a successor to Bernard Hinault in the men's Tour, all France is now enamoured by women's cycling and with the 33-year-old from Reims, who was called within minutes of confirming her victory by the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Ferrand-Prévot's achievement, of winning the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix in the same year, and both within 12 months of winning an Olympic gold medal for mountain biking, confirms her versatility and ambition. With the Olympic rings tattooed on her arm, she had reverted to road racing from mountain biking and stated that it was her ambition to win the Tour within three years. She did it in one. 'I think I put the bar really high this year in terms of preparing for this race,' she said. 'There have been a lot of sacrifices. Now I just want to enjoy the moment, because it might only happen once.' The writing was on the wall even on stage one, when she jumped clear of the peloton on the final climb of the Côte de Cadoudal in Plumelec, with a sharp acceleration. But she bided her time and has remained calm and contained throughout, even during the mid-race public spat between her team manager, Jos van Emden, and Demi Vollering's team manager, Stephen Delcourt. For seven of the nine stages she remained discreet, but when her moment came she was ready. If her first stage win, on the Madeleine on Saturday, confirmed the earlier impressions of her speed in Plumelec, her win in Châtel emphasised her dominance. 'I'd said to the sports directors this morning that if I could win in yellow then I'd try to,' she said. 'It all came down to how I felt on the last climb. I attacked but I didn't think I'd be able to keep going like that and win.' As the final stage began there were, initially, some nerves and Ferrand-Prévot was put under pressure almost immediately as she lost ground with the main peloton on the long descent from the start to Sallanches. 'I made a mistake on the first descent,' she said. 'I think I was just a bit scared with the pressure of the jersey, so afterwards I stayed close to the front and made an effort to stay there.' But the race leader rejoined the main group on the approach to the first climb, the Cote d'Arâches-la-Frasse. Even before top of the first category climb a selection had been made with the favourites all moving ahead of the splintering bunch, in pursuit of the lone breakaway, Anna van der Breggen. The Dutch rider, 12th overall as the stage began, built up a near two-minute lead on the approach to the hardest climb of the stage, the Col de Joux-Plane. Behind her the main peloton dwindled further after Cédrine Kerbaol, then fifth overall, crashed at the foot of the climb and was distanced quickly. The Joux-Plane's gradients reduced the lead group to just seven riders, including Ferrand-Prévot, second-placed Sarah Gigante, the 2023 winner, Vollering, and the defending champion, Kasia Niewiadoma. Five kilometres from the top, Gigante accelerated, taking her rivals with her, but as on Saturday's climb, to the top of the Madeleine, the Australian was not able to open a gap. Instead, it was Vollering and Niewiadoma who combined on the fast descent to distance Gigante, in the hope of pushing her out of the Tour's top three. By the foot of the descent they had succeeded and she was never able to recover. Vollering, second overall, and Niewiadoma, who finished third, have shown remarkable consistency. They have appeared on the podium in every edition of the Tour de France Femmes since its inauguration in 2022. But this past week was all about the rebirth of French cycling. With the yellow jersey plus four stage wins out of nine days of racing, two for Ferrand-Prévot and two for the irrepressible Maëva Squiban, the hosts have dominated. There is, at long last, life after Hinault.
