Bettiol Solos Into Verbania: Stage 13 of the Giro Goes to the Breakaway

Alberto Bettiol crossed the line in Verbania with his arms open and his face turned skyward — the gesture of a rider who has been waiting nearly five years for a moment like this one to arrive. Stage 13 of the 2026 Giro d'Italia ended that wait.

The Attack That Decided It

The Ungiasca was where Bettiol moved. Four-point-seven kilometres at seven percent average, arriving with roughly 21 kilometres to Verbania — the profile that had hung over the stage as its defining question, and which Bettiol answered with an attack that dropped Andreas Leknessund on the upper slopes and left everyone else reaching for something they didn't have.

He caught Leknessund — who had been with him from the breakaway group — somewhere on the steeper middle section of the Ungiasca, accelerated past him, and did not look back. By the time the descent began, the gap was enough. On the Lungolago, Verbania's lakeside road into the finish, he had 26 seconds on Leknessund and the race was over.

"I knew every single corner in the last 50 kilometres," Bettiol said after the finish. The knowledge was earned. The roads that close into Verbania above Lake Maggiore are northern Italian training roads — ridden by generations of professionals based in Piedmont — and Bettiol's familiarity showed in the precision of how he used the descent. Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) arrived for third at 44 seconds. The bunch sprint for what was left came in behind.

Ganna's Hometown Goes to Someone Else

The stage had been set up, in every preview piece, as a potential Filippo Ganna day. The Verbania native, two-time time-trial world champion and Stage 10 winner in Biella, would be racing a finish that was placed in his home city. His family would be in the crowd on the lakeside road. The theatre was complete.

It didn't play out that way. The Ungiasca's gradients were not a time-trial, and Ganna's TT engine — the most powerful on the road on flat ground — lost traction on slopes above nine percent. He could not follow Bettiol's acceleration on the upper mountain. He came in with the main peloton, the crowd on the Lungolago already celebrating a different Italian winner.

"I did everything I could," he said. It's the honest answer. The roads you know best watch someone else win on them sometimes. That is also the sport.

Afonso Eulálio and Jonas Vingegaard arrived together in the chasing group. The 33-second gap between them is unchanged. Tomorrow is the Giro's second rest day, after which the Alpine stages of Week 3 begin.

Vingegaard has completed Stage 11, 12, and 13 without closing ground on Eulálio. The mountain time trial and the Blockhaus already measured them against each other — Eulálio absorbed both. What the Visma team needs is a high-altitude stage long enough to produce the kind of attrition that breaks a GC leader who has been carrying the responsibility of the maglia rosa. That kind of stage is coming. Whether Eulálio breaks under it is the central question of the second half of this race.

For now, it's rest day. The margin is 33 seconds. Neither rider has blinked.

What Comes Next

Stage 14 follows the rest day. The Alpine parcours of the final week will tell the real GC story. Stage 13 went to the breakaway, as stages like this one often do — the puncheur's finale delivered for a puncheur, and Bettiol took back nearly five years of waiting in 189 kilometres through Piedmont.

For the route guide to the Lake Maggiore roads that closed this stage, see our Lake Maggiore cycling destination guide. For the pre-stage preview filed from Verbania this morning, see the Stage 13 preview. For Stage 12's Segaert heist in Novi Ligure, the Stage 12 field report has the full account.