a slight controversy opened up the second week, with stage ten ending in a reduced sprint caused by the fall of the "maglia ciclamino" holder ackermann. arnaud démare () found victory over viviani and rudiger selig (), who sprinted after ackermann's crash. ackermann would finish, although losing the ciclamino to demare, and matteo moschetti would withdraw from injuries sustained in the incident. ewan found victory once again in stage eleven, where he once again beat demare and ackermann. ewan and viviani both announced their withdrawals afterwards, in preparation for the tour de france. stage twelve followed the common roads of the il lombardia, where cesare benedetti () of the breakaway took his first pro win over damiano caruso (bahrain-merida) and eddie dunbar (team ineos). it also saw jan polanc () taking over the general classification from his teammate conti. the thirteenth stage was the first true mountain stage of the giro, and was potentially the turning point. ilnur zakarin (katusha-alpecin) took victory after an attack, in which he caught up and surpassed second placed mikel nieve (mitchelton-scott), with mikel landa () coming in third. the surprise of the day was richard carapaz, who essentially was let go by vincenzo nibali (bahrain-merida) and roglič. this placed him right with the other favorites, two down on roglič and a further two on polanc. however, on the other end of the spectrum, big names like miguel ángel lópez () and simon yates (mitchelton-scott) lose multiple minutes on the day. stage fourteen was arguably the "maglia rosa"-deciding stage, as carapaz was once again on the attack for minutes. the rest of the favorites once again let him go, and let his gap grow to nearly two minutes for a decisive victory. yates placed in second, gaining about 20 seconds on the rest of the favorites. the fifteenth day of racing was one for the break again, as dario cataldo () edged out mattia cattaneo (androni giocattoli-sidermec) for the win, with yates once again placing on the podium. this stage saw roglic lose a bit of time on his rivals after a nightmare day filled with crashes and such, obtaining a needed break from the final rest day.