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Giro d'Italia: Stage 12 Preview - Seravezza to Sestri Levante 155 km

A tough day and one for the break says Geraint Thomas… but there's a nice tight turn at the finish if ends in a sprint...

A stage that starts and finishes on the coast, and heads along it for the opening 50 kilometres, but after that there are a succession of tough climbs as the race goes into the hills above the Ligurian sea. Inside the final ten kilometres, there’s a fast descent from the day’s last climb, as well as a 180-degree bend just 500 metres from the finish.

Alessandro Petacchi, left out of the Lampre team, has admitted he’s not up to this year’s Giro after struggling with bronchitis, and while this isn’t a sprinter’s stage, he’ll have mixed feelings about missing it – he lives close to the start, and was born in La Spezia, which the race passes through shortly before the bumpy stuff starts.

GT: I think another breakaway day, for the GC men, unless they’re particularly dangerous, they’re not going to make any advantage there. It will just be a day for them to limit the amount of work they’ve got to do, really. I can’t see any teams really wanting to bring a break back, it’s tough terrain as well, they’ll have to ride quite hard. It will be a hard day and a big fight at the start, and probably a decent sized break.

For more on this year's race read our full Giro d'Italia Preview.

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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