A breakaway consisting of Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla), Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), and Magnus Cort Nielsen survived all the way to the finish, with Magnus Cort Nielsen winning the 3-man sprint to take Stage 10 of the 2023 Giro d’Italia. The win completes the Grand Tour trilogy for the Dane.
Geraint Thomas finished safely with the maglia rosa group to hold onto the overall lead.
Coming back from the first rest day, the Giro started with the Maglia Rosa now on the shoulders of Geraint Thomas. Remco Evenepoel briefly led the race after Sunday’s ITT, but tested positive for COVID later that day and headed home. Along with Evenepoel, Oscar Riesebeek (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-EasyPost), Stefan Küng (Groupama – FDJ), Sven Erik Bystrøm (Intermarché – Circus – Wanty), Rein Taaramae (Intermarché – Circus – Wanty), Domenico Pozzovivo (Israel – Premier Tech), Mads Würtz Schmidt (Israel – Premier Tech), and Callum Scotson (Team Jayco AlUla) dropped out of the race over the break.
Starting from Scandiano and finishing in Viareggio, the 196km route featured a wavy first half with the climbs of Passo delle Radici and Monteperpoli. After a fast running and technical descent into Castelnuovo Garfagnana, the route takes in a short climb to Monteperpoli. A long false flat down, passing just outside Lucca, leads through Camaiore to the coast, and all the way to the finish.
The last 3 km run flat and straight along the seafront, from Camaiore to Viareggio. It was expected to be a day for the sprinters.
As the race went live, the trio of Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla), Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), and Magnus Cort Nielsen (EF Education-EasyPost) were off the front with Davide Bais, Damiano Caruso, Jonathan Milan, Andrea Pasqualon, Pavel Sivakov, and Lorenzo Rota chasing. The peloton and the maglia rosa group were 3’20” back.
Once again, the stage is plagued by rain and the conditions were definitely affecting speeds in the gruppo.
With 55km to go, the roads seemed to be drying up a little bit and the leader’s gap had dropped to 2’30”.
Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious), Davide Ballerini (Soudal-QuickStep), Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates), Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), all expected to go for the sprint today, all are sitting comfortably in the maglia rosa group.
But we speak too soon! There’s a crash in the maglia rosa group with ambulances on the scene. Two separate incidents took place on the same stretch of road just seconds from one another. Involved in the falls were Lukas Pöstlberger (Jayco AlUla), Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) and Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic).
28km to go and the leader’s advantage was down to 1’40” over the maglia rosa group. The maglia rosa group had pulled clear of a group of chasers, who were more than 5 minutes back from the leaders at this point.
Notably, however, Mark Cavendish managed to reconnect with the maglia rosa group, adding him to the list of those that will be contesting the sprint today. His Astana Qazaqstan teammates Christisan Scaroni and Gianni Moscon are leading the peloton.
With 16km to go, the leader’s advantage dropped below a minute and fell precipitously from there.
6km to go and the leaders still had a 42 second lead. Would it last? Would they leave the sprinters clamoring for 4th place?
2km remaining and the leaders still held a 45 second lead. They stayed away and it came down to a three man spring with Cort Nielsen coming out on top.
Speaking in the press conference, the stage winner Magnus Cort Nielsen said: “The 2022 Giro d’Italia was my first participation in a Grand Tour in which I didn’t win any stage so I’m super happy that I succeeded in my second trial. It’s a big deal for me to win at least one stage win in every Grand Tour. It’s something I’ve been hoping for and dreaming of for many years. It’s a big part of the reasons for me being here again this year. A Giro stage win was missing on my palmarès, it feels great now. It was an incredibly hard stage, one the hardest days on my bike, because of a majority of climbing in the first 90 kilometres. We wanted to push as hard as we could to stop the sprinters and we didn’t succeed, so I had to reach the breakaway instead. I was lucky that De Marchi kept working at the front. I could feel that I wasn’t pushing the same watts in the last hour. I was scared that my body would suddenly stop working, but luckily my legs kept turning normally.”
The Maglia Rosa Geraint Thomas said: “The way I took the Maglia Rosa is not normal and the weather today was not ideal to enjoy it. As a respect to the race, I wanted to keep the jersey in the bunch. What happened [to Remco Evenepoel] is unfortunate, but if someone has to wear the Maglia Rosa, I’m happy to do that. There are still lot of good bike riders in the race. The main difference is that we have the jersey now. We haven’t raced to the top of a mountain yet, so we’ll see what Friday’s stage brings. We’ll defend the lead until then. We have a strong team with several riders highly placed on GC but we’re not getting complacent. There are eleven stages to go. Weather conditions can impact the race but I hope for a better forecast, I’ve left Wales when I was 20 to go away from the bad weather. However, conditions are the same for everyone. I was keen to race the whole course if it was possible and it proved to be the case.”
Stage 10 Brief Results:
- Magnus Cort Nielsen (EF Education First – Easy Post) at 4h’51’15″
- Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) s.t.
- Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla) at 2″
General Classification After Stage 10:
- Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers)
- Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) at 2″
- Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) at 5″
Jerseys:
- Maglia Rosa, leader of the General Classification, sponsored by Enel – Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers)
- Maglia Ciclamino, leader of the Points Classification, sponsored by Agenzia ICE with the brand Madeinitaly.gov.it – Jon
athan Milan (Bahrain – Victorious) - Maglia Azzurra, leader of the Gran Premio della Montagna, sponsored by Banca Mediolanum – Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa Cycling Team)
- Maglia Bianca, Best Young Rider, sponsored by Intimissimi Uomo – João Pedro Gonçalves Almeida (UAE Team Emirates)
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