Giro Stage 14 preview: It’s all on for the Zoncolan.

How perfectly is this Giro poised? We have a pure climber looking to crack the legs of the Time-Trial World Champion, on one of the toughest climbs in professional cycling, does it get any better than this?

Let’s talk about the climb itself. With sections of up to 22%, stretching over approximately 11km, the Zoncolan is an absolute brute and will have been ever-present in the mind of everyone in the race since the route was announced.

The main storyline is Dumoulin vs. the climbers who are around him in the GC shake-up, but throw in the great champion, Chris Froome, and the struggling home favourite in Fabio Aru and we have couple of intriguing subplots that could potentially tear up the race script.

Adam Yates, Thibaut Pinot and Domenico Pozzovivo all know that they need to take a big chunk of time out of the defending champion Dumoulin, who will put minutes into all of them over a 30+km TT, so the pressure is on to make every metre that goes up hill count.

Dumoulin for his part is a hard man to drop, showing  on the short punchy finish of Stage 11 that he could still limit his losses to the leader and take time on the other contenders. His ambition for Saturday will be to hang on in there and keep any losses to a minimum.

If Chavez has rediscovered his legs he could be vital support for Yates in the final stages, but the hectic nature of the race so far won’t have given him much chance to recover. Perversely, in Pinot and Pozzovivo he may find natural allies, as they all look to take serious time on Dumoulin.

Froome and Aru could be the dark horses for this stage, a few minutes back on GC and a race to rescue, they both need a strong showing to answer the doubters and keep themselves in the hunt for a decent GC finish. The question will be how closely marked they are if they get the chance to ride away from the current leaders. Both will need a serious upturn in form though.

With so much racing still to come in this Giro, we won’t find our winner on the Zoncalon tomorrow, but we will know plenty of names that won’t be winning it. What a final week this could be.