photo credits @ Gazzetta Dello Sport
After narrowly missing out on victory in yesterday’s opening stage of the Giro d’Italia, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) took solace in claiming today’s stage, after the Slovenian rider attacked along the final climb of Santuario di Oropa to seize a solo win ahead of Dani Martinez (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) by almost half a minute.
Meanwhile, Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) lost ground and was forced to surrender the maglia rosa.
Pogačar now leads Thomas and Martinez by 45 seconds.
Race Highlights
The day’s breakaway went clear 7km after the start, with Christian Scaroni (Astana Qazaqstan), Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost), Davide Bais (Team Polti Kometa), Filippo Fiorelli and Martin Marcellusi (both VF Group – Bardiani CSF – Faizanè) later opening up an advantage of over four minutes with 100km remaining.
Back in the peloton, Eddie Dunbar and Filippo Zana (both Team Jayco AlUla), Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Nicola Conci (Alpecin-Deceuninck) crashed with a clash of wheels most likely the culprit. However, all were able to remount.
With 54km to go, Piccolo attacked at Crocemosso, later opening up a 45-second gap over Scaroni, Bais and Marcellusi with 40km to go.
Meanwhile, Ineos Grenadiers led the peloton towards the bonus sprint in Biella with 11km to go, with Pogačar forced to exchange bikes after a slight fall due to a front wheel puncture.
The peloton later reeled in the remnants of the breakaway, before finally reining in Piccolo with 6.5km to go.
Majka drove the pace until 4.4km to go, sending many riders out the back including Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers). However, as soon as he dropped off Pogačar lit things up, with only Ben O’Connor initially able to follow him.
But, the Australian rider was quickly dropped, with Thomas joining him with 2.3km remaining.
In the meantime, race leader Narváez was absent from this group, conceding even more time and slipping out of the pink jersey, while Pogačar was busy storming up the climb, finishing 27 seconds ahead of closest rivals Martínez, Thomas, Fortunato and Lipowitz.
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