Pogacar achieves historic feat in Giro's queen stage, Arensman also impresses

This Sunday, waking up early was the order of the day for the participants of the Giro d'Italia. The stage, spanning 222 kilometers, required them to start at 10:40 AM from Lake Garda. Hence, a good meal was crucial, as well as an early one: various cyclists were already at the breakfast table around seven in the morning.

Once the starting shot sounded, all of this was quickly forgotten. Right from the start, a group of about ten fast riders set off, which was immediately to the liking of UAE-Team Emirates. Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Davide Ballerini, Simone Velasco (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Harrison Wood (Cofidis), Laurence Pithie, Lewis Askey, Oliver Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Lilian Calmejane (Intermarché-Wanty), Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal Quick-Step), Caleb Ewan (Jayco AlUla), Davide Bais (Polti-Kometa) and Alessandro Tonelli (VF Group-Bardiani) were granted an early lead.

Ten seconds grew to thirty, and before they knew it, they had a lead of one and a half minutes. However, this was also the signal for Cofidis to turn things around: they had Simon Geschke, a contender for the mountain jersey, and this plan suddenly fell through, prompting the domestiques to take the lead in the peloton.

This led to some peculiar situations, both in the breakaway and the peloton. Benjamin Thomas quickly made it known in the main group that he was not interested in taking turns at the front, and ostentatiously moved to the back, while Wood, as a teammate of Geschke, endured the mockery of fellow escapist Calmejane. "Stupid Cofidis," the Frenchman yelled at everyone.

Anyway, until the first climb, the red jerseys set the pace in the peloton, and then it was up to Geschke himself as soon as the course went uphill. This unfolded an interesting scenario as more riders saw their chance to break away and make the leap forward. Group after group moved away from the peloton, where Juan Sebastian Molano and Rui Oliveira controlled the pace on behalf of Pogacar.

Eventually, sixty (!!!) riders broke away from the main group, but strangely, there was little threat to the general classification. Only Michael Storer (Tudor) had a direct view of the top ten, but he preferred not to expend too much energy with what was still to come. The full breakaway composition is spared here, but Tobias Foss, Jhonatan Narváez (INEOS Grenadiers), Giulio Pellizzari (VF Group-Bardiani), Davide Piganzoli (Polti-Kometa), Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla) and Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) were also among the escapees.

As often happens in such a large group, the cooperation faltered. After Cristian Scaroni of Astana Qazaqstan Team gathered some mountain points, he decided to push on with Ballerini (Astana), Wood (Cofidis), Bayer (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Pellizzari and Tonelli (VF Group-Bardiani). This group quickly gained a two-minute lead, while the peloton was also closing in from the other side. Pogacar's pacemakers then set the tempo towards the foot of the Mortirolo.

Thus, the Polti-Kometa crew chose to take the lead towards the foot of the Mortirolo. With a 40-second deficit, they reached the base, where the peloton, led by UAE, began the pre-final more than five minutes behind.

Many people might have turned on the TV for the Mortirolo climb, but honesty compels us to say that this ascent turned out to be a bit of a non-event: in the peloton, Vegard Stake Laengen and Domen Novak managed to cut the gap by a mere half minute, and the breakaway group did disperse somewhat, but the real spectacle did not materialize. In the descent, everything came back together, resulting in a situation where a group of about fifteen riders still had a 4:30 minute lead over a chasing peloton. However, there was still a climb of forty kilometers to go.

In the valley heading towards Livigno, Laengen and Novak could already perform their job: to ride as hard as possible and thus narrow the gap to the front. In the leading group, the ice broke thirty kilometers from the finish, led by Piganzoli, who managed to eliminate strong riders like López, Vansevenant and Pellizzari early on.

On the Passo di Foscagno, a lot had to happen on two fronts: at the front, Georg Steinhauser tried to escape from his competitors, and he succeeded remarkably well. Storer and Quintana kept such a close watch on each other that they didn't realize that Jan Ullrich's nephew had suddenly taken off by a minute, while the group of favorites also had to pick up the pace: they faced a three-minute deficit with just 15 kilometers to go.

Pogacar clearly thought that was too much and ordered Majka to pick up the pace, and then he launched his attack about fourteen kilometers from the finish. Daniel Felipe Martínez tried to follow for a bit, but naturally fell back into the mixed group of (podium) favorites led by Decathlon AG2R. Meanwhile, Quintana dropped Steinhauser ahead, turning the battle for the stage victory into one between Quintana and Pogacar. The climber from Colombia started the last climbing kilometers with a forty-second advantage. With two kilometers to go, his lead ended, and Pogacar could start thinking about his victory gesture.

Meanwhile, the other general classification riders were riding their own race, with Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL) as the first attacker. Einer Rubio (Movistar) tried next, and particularly Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) found it quite tough, which created opportunities for the white jersey mission of Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers). He took the lead for the cause, which in turn caused difficulties for Ben O'Connor of Decathlon AG2R.

The Aussie defended vigorously and returned, but ultimately the final reckoning behind Pogacar, Quintana and Steinhauser was: Bardet, then Martínez and Thomas, followed by Rubio, O'Connor, Arensman and Hirt. Tiberi lost four minutes.