Pierre Rolland ends Cannondale-Drapac drought on Giro stage 17

Pierre Rolland ends Cannondale-Drapac's two year drought without a stage win in a Grand Tour with a breakaway on stage 17 of Giro 100. 

Credit: cyclingnews.com
The French rider - who's last Grand Tour stage win was five years ago on the Tour de France - attacked the breakaway group with 8km remaining and fought on his own to take the stage win in Canazei, 30 years after it was last used on a Giro d'Italia route.

This result ends two years of disappointment after Davide Formolo's victory for Cannondale-Garmin on stage four of the 2015 Giro d'Italia.

"I'm just so happy", exclaimed a relieved Rolland, "I've waited for this moment for such a long time. The last 50km was attack, attack, left, right, come back. The last 8km there was so much pain everywhere in my body and I just thought, 'ok just keep going'." 

Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) and Gorka Izaguirre (Movistar) finished at the front of the chasing pack to round out the podium. 

Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) was in the breakaway and gained time on general classification, overtaking Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) to move to tenth. 

Rolland, Pavel Brutt (Gazprom) and Matej Mohoric (UAE Team Emirates) made up the initial three man break, followed by a large chasing group of 39 riders, all of whom were no threat to GC as the gap opened to 13 minutes. After the first two second category climbs of the stage Rolland dropped back into the chasing group.

With 61km to go, the chasing group containing Rolland became the leading group with the absorption of Mohoric. Brutt was completely done however and looked to be suffering badly, dropping back to his team car for urgently needed water and nutrition.

The leading group stayed together until 7.9km to go when Rolland launched an unexpected attack. The Cannondale-Drapac rider looked behind numerous times but no one followed, allowing the Frenchman to open a 24 second lead and end a stage win drought for both himself and his team. 

Stage 18 - 137km from Moena to Ortisei - is an absolute brute. With five categorised climbs including three over 2,000 metres it's being hailed the Queen stage of the Dolomites and may well see as much if not more action than the official Queen stage on the Stelvio yesterday.

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