photo credits @ Giro d’Italia
Valentin Paret-Peintre (Decathlon-AG2R) took an impressive victory in stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia today, after the French rider chased down lone attacker Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease a Bike) along the summit finish of Bocca della Selva during the final kilometers of the climb to clinch the honors.
“To be honest, I can’t describe what I feel now. It’s just amazing,” Paret-Peintre said.
“I was there to do a good result on the stage, and why not win? It? Now I have a stage win for my first pro win. It’s amazing. I watched Bardet when I was young, when he finished on the podium at the Tour de France. I dreamt by seeing him on TV and today I battled with him and beat him. I saw on the profile that the last four kilometres were the hardest and so I waited and waited on the last climb until I saw the last three kilometres, then I attacked,” he added
Meanwhile, Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), who was alongside Paret-Peintre on the final climb, was distanced during the final three kilometers to finish in third at 29 seconds back.
In the meantime, Ben O’Connor led home Tadej Pogačar and the rest of the GC group that finished more than three minutes down on Bardet, with Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) still holding onto third place in the overall classification.
Race Highlights
With around 40 kilometers to go, the day’s large breakaway group was still holding onto an advatage of more than three and a half minutes over the peloton, with UAE Emirates controlling things back in the main field.
With 29 kilometers to go, Tratnik animated things with an attack off the front of the lead group, a move that was quickly responded to by Bardet along the final climb.
Bardet was soon joined by Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek), Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech) and Paret-Peintre, while Tratnik showed no sign of relenting up front.
With 14 kilometers remaining, Tratnik looked poised for victory, but Paret-Peintre had other ideas.
The young Frenchman dropped Bardet with three kilometer to go and quickly caught and passed Tratnik before soloing to the line to snatch the victory.
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