Matej Mohoric of the Bahrain-Merida squad hung on to the lead after a late escape to snatch the win in the 10th stage of the 101st Giro d’Italia – the longest stage of this year’s race.
The 101st edition of the Giro d’Italia was back on today after the race’s second rest day. After yesterday’s break, the riders were treated to the longest stage of the race today. At 244km, the stage from Penne to Gualdo Tadino is hard enough, but the day started with a Category 2 climb to the summit of Fonte Della Creta, and the rest of the stage included enough hills to keep things tense.
The stage started with an early attack from Davide Ballerini, Luis Leon Sachez, Matej Mohoric, Ben Hermans, Krists Neilands, Ben King, Tom Scully, Tony Martin, Koen Bouwman & Jarlinson Pantano. Matteo Montaguti, Giulio Ciccone, Ruben Fernandez and Mads Wurtz Schmidt went off in pursuit.
More riders jumped on the break, making it 17 off the front just 14km into the stage. The riders were Davide Ballerini (Androni-Giocattoli), Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Merida), Ben Hermans and Krists Neilands (Israel Cycling Academy), Ben King (Dimension Data), Tom Scully (EF Education First-Drapac), Tony Martin and Mads Wurtz Schmidt (Katusha-Alpecin), Koen Bouwman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Jarlinson Pantano and Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates), Matteo Montaguti (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Ruben Fernandez (Movistar), Giulio Ciccone (Bardiani-CSF) and Jacopo Mosca (Wilier Triestina).
Local rider Giulio Ciccone took the KOM points over the top of the climb in honour of the victims of the Rigopiano tragedy. I love these little honors like this that they do.
The break was down to 12 riders with just a 1’10” lead as they started the descent.
Matej Mohoric attacked the break on the descent and sped away at nearly 70km/h for 8km to open a healthy gap of 35 seconds, but he was soon back with the rest of the break. Bet his sponsors loved the exposure though.
Eurosport was reporting that Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-SCOTT), who was sitting at 2nd place in the GC, was trailing the peloton. With his team leader Simon Yates in the maglia rosa, it’s doubtful that his sporting directors will be sending anyone back to help him rejoin the pack. At the 176km mark, Chaves has fallen 2’10” to the peloton and 3’30” to the leaders.
Tony Martin and Krists Nielands attack the break and it’s ultimately Groupama-FDJ, Sunweb, LottoNL-Jumbo and Sky all putting riders on the front of the pack, which trails the leaders by one minute at 156km.
With 145km still in the race, Tony Martin is on the sharp point, riding alone at the front with the peloton one minute behind, but he ultimately sat up 8km later and rejoined the bunch.
There were about 90 riders in the main pack, with a large gruppetto driven by Mitchelton-SCOTT and Quick Step two minutes off the back. Sprint leader Elia Viviani was in that group as well.
With the break absorbed, the peloton backed off the pace a little – but only a little. With Chaves off the back, other teams are looking at his second place position in the G.C. with hungry eyes.
Unfortunately, as Quick Step decides not to run Viviani up and Chaves’ teammates need to save their legs for Simon Yates and stages to come, Chaves falls even more. With 92km remaining, his gap had opened to 3’52”.
Things were still looking good for Yates, who was riding at the front, and more importantly, nabbing precious intermediate sprint bonuses. He’s extended his lead over Thibaut Pinot by one second and Tom Dumoulin and the others by three seconds.
Marco Frapporti (Androni-Giocattoli) took advantage of a lull after the intermediate sprint to go on the attack. He quickly opened an advantage of 25 seconds over the main pack and is giving his team lots of extra TV time.
Not much later, Frapporti has a gap of 2’42” as the stage approached the day’s final climb. A downpour of rain could have worked to his advantage, but it eases up and his advantage is down to 45 seconds with 33km remaining. Davide Villella (Astana) and Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Merida) go on the attack and catch Frapporti just 500m shy of the final summit.
Mohoric led Villella over the top to take maximum points over the Cat. 4 climb. Frapporti, still hanging on, took third place.
Mohoric hit the downhill in his typical daring fashion with Villella not far behind. Nico Denz of Ag2R-La Mondiale was leading the chase on the two leaders.
With about 20km remaining, Mohoric, Villella and Denz were just about together with the main pack about 30 seconds back.
Alessandro De Marchi and Sergio Henao attack the peloton to go in pursuit of the three leaders.
Villella doesn’t have the gas to hang on and falls into no-mans-land with about 6km to go. De Marchi and Henao are the next to crack, leaving Mohoric and Denz 48 seconds off the front.
At the line Denz looks to have the more favorable position, but it’s ultimately Mohoric for the win.
Speaking seconds after the stage finish, the stage winner, Matej Mohoric, said: “It’s amazing. I’m super happy for myself but, foremost, for my team Bahrain-Merida. They let me try and win a stage, although we’re racing for Domenico Pozzovivo on GC. I was not confident to beat Nico Denz. That’s why I tried to attack him before. When I saw that he was not passing, I gave it my all.”
The race leader, Simon Yates, said: “Chaves just had a bad moment on the first climb of the day. Straight after the rest day, you don’t know how the body responds. I’m very disappointed for him because he’s worked hard for this Giro. I was going to go for the bonus sprint because I need to gain time on Tom Dumoulin but, when I saw Thibaut Pinot getting a lead out, I went past him. I need as many seconds as I can get so maybe I need to go for more bonus seconds.”
Stage 10 Brief Results:
- Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Merida)
- Nico Denz (Ag2R-La Mondiale)
- Sam Bennett (BORA-hansgrohe) at 34″
- Enrico Battaglin (LottoNL- Jumbo) s.t.
- Davide Ballerina (Androni-Giattacoli) s.t.
- Mads Wurtz Schmidt (Katusha-Alpecin) s.t
- Franceso Gavazzi (Androni-Giattacoli) s.t.
- Jarlinson Pantano (Trek-Segafredo) s.t.
- Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo) s.t.
- Jose Goncalves (Katusha-Alpecin) s.t
General Classification After Stage 10:
- Simon Yates (Mitchelton-SCOTT) at 43h 42’38”
- Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) at 41″
- Thibaut Pinot (Groupama – FDJ) at 46″
- Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) at 1’00”
- Richard Carapaz (Movistar) at 1’23”
- George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo) at 1’36”
- Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) at 2’08”
- Pello Bilbao (Astana) s.t.
- Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac) at 2’28”
- Chris Froome (Team Sky) at 2’30”
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