A shortened Stage 16 of the 2024 Giro d’Italia still served up some excitement. Julian Alaphilippe led for most of the stage but no one was stopping Pogacar in his domination of the race. He took his fifth stage win with what looked like little effort.
Weather conditions shortened today’s stage to 118km, but few surprises presented themselves in the cold rain.
After riding together for 30km, a four man group of Davide Ballerini (Astana Qazaqstan), Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Mirco Maestri (Team Polti Kometa) went clear. Movistar led the chase, but the quartet opened a lead of 1’45” by the 50km mark.
The quartet mostly stayed together through the Passeo Pinei climb, but Alaphilippe saw an opportunity and went clear with about 30km to go. Ballerini was one minute behind and Fiorelli was closing in on him. Andrea Pietrobon (Team Polti Kometa) was trying to get out of the bunch.
With 20km remaining, Pelayo Sanchez (Movistar) attacked the peloton chased by Jan Tratnik (Visma | Lease a Bike). It did not last, but Sanchez wasn’t sitting back, continuing to push the pace.
With 12km to go, Alaphilippe still led the Maglia Rosa group by nearly 40 seconds. He took the final KOM points before starting the descent to the start of the Monte Pana climb.
Christian Scaroni (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Giulio Pellizzari (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) and Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) have escaped from the peloton, but Alaphilippe’s descending skills allowed him to open more seconds over the peloton.
The chasers were 15″ off Alaphilippe’s back wheel with 6km to go.
5km to go and it was Alaphilippe, Scaroni, Pellizzari, and Costiuo going for the stage win. And the Maglia Rosa group was within 24 seconds of the leaders.
After going alone in the cold for a long time, Alaphilippe cracked with barely 2km to go. Would Pogacar make another attempt, or let the leading trio go for the win?
Pellizzari and Costiou were alone at the front, but Pogacar decided to make a go with 1.3km to go. He quickly caught Scaroni and moved within 20 second of the leaders.
With 1km to go, Pogacar was just 11 seconds back.
.7km to go and Pogacar made the pass with what looked like little effort to take the win.
Speaking in the press conference, the stage winner and Maglia Rosa Tadej Pogacar said: “I thought Dani Martinez was closer to me, that’s why I tried to make a difference at the end, but Giulio Pellizzari did a super job today and I hope he wins a stage this week. He showed a great talent, especially on the third week. I like things to be planned, like my girlfriend always want everything to be organised, before I wasn’t like this, but now I that I’m older I want the plan to be executed to perfection. In cycling it’s almost impossible and today things didn’t go as planned and we still got the victory. I’m happy that we didn’t need to put so much work into it with the team because Movistar rode for the stage and it was a nice surprise for us”.
Stage 16 Brief Results:
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) @ 2h 49’37”
- Giulio Pellizzari (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) @ 16″
- Dani Martinez (BORA hansgronhe) s.t.
General Classification After Stage 16
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
- Daniel Felipe Martinez (Bora – Hansgrohe) at 7’18”
- Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) at 7’40”
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