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If you’re watching the 2024 Giro d’Italia just to see who’s going to win overall, well, it’s not the most engaging spectacle. Tadej Pogačar looks on track to win the thing by more than eight minutes at this point.
Thankfully, there have been plenty more storylines to follow throughout this year’s Giro, including some strong rides from fan favourites.
With the Giro now 15 stages old, the riders are taking their second and final rest day before their final push to Rome. Let’s take this opportunity to look back over the second ‘week’ of the race – stages 10 through 15 – courtesy of some photos from Chris Auld (shooting for Gruber Images), Kristof Ramon, and Cor Vos. And in case you missed it, here’s our round-up from stages 1 through 9.
The riders signed on in Pompeii at the start of stage 10, kicking off the second ‘week’ of the race. Julian Alaphilippe (center) would be a key protagonist in the days that followed.On stage 10, a mid-race break of 25 swept up the early move and went on to contest the stage. Note #64 there: Valentin Paret-Peintre.Jan Tratnik led solo deep into the race.Andrea Bagioli was up the road too, and finished fourth in the end.Back in the main bunch, overall leader Pogačar was doing it relatively easy.Paret-Peintre caught Tratnik late and carried on alone to win solo by nearly 30 seconds. It was his first pro win.Romain Bardet claimed second on the stage …… with Tratnik rounding out the podium.Ben O’Connor led in the group of GC contenders more than three minutes behind the stage winner.Best young rider, Cian Uijtdebroeks was a little way back, and would leave the race overnight due to illness.After the mountains of stage 10, stage 11 offered terrain more friendly to the fastmen.There was some early climbing …… but not enough to prevent a bunch sprint. Note the riders bumping shoulders in the left of frame, and the teammate celebrating in the rear.The stage victory belonged to Jonathan Milan, his second of the race.Tim Merlier, meanwhile, would be relegated for an irregular sprint.Oh, and in case you forgot who was leading the race overall, it’s this bloke. His margin at this point was 2:40 but that was about to expand.With a whole bunch of smaller climbs, stage 12 looked like it could be a day for the breakaway.When the dust settled after a chaotic start to the race, Julian Alaphilippe and Mirco Maestri emerged out front with around 125 km still to go.With their former breakaway companions in hot pursuit, the leading duo had to work hard to maintain their lead. They’d stick together until around 10 km to go when Alaphilippe set off alone.Currently injured, photographer Jered Gruber has been playing around with processing some images from the TV coverage. Here’s Alaphilippe on the move.And a shot of the GC favourites, who seemed happy to let the break have their day.In his fourth day out front in this year’s Giro, and after finishing second on stage 6, Alaphilippe soloed to his first Giro stage win and his first Grand Tour stage victory since 2021.Easy does it.Pogačar signs on for a pancake-flat stage 13 – another one to save the legs before the challenging days ahead.It was a pretty regulation sprint day …… aside from a moment with around 60 km to go, when Ineos Grenadiers hit the front in the crosswinds and split the bunch. Top sprinter Jonathan Milan was caught out in the group behind, but after his Lidl-Trek team rallied and chased hard, it all came back together …… setting things up for Milan’s third stage win. He leads the maglia ciclamino competition by more than 100 points.Stage 14 was time trial day at the Giro featuring a mostly flat 31.2 km effort. Pictured here is Caleb Ewan who hasn’t had the Giro he wanted. Sixth place on stage 5 is his best result so far.After being beaten by Pogačar in the stage 7 time trial, Filippo Ganna was out for revenge.Aussie TT champ Luke Plapp has been solid in the race’s two ITTs, taking seventh on stage 7 and fifth on stage 14.In a sea of oversized TT helmets …… Alaphilippe cut a rather striking figure in his more road-race-friendly choice.41-year-old Domenico Pozzovivo is currently racing his 18th Giro d’Italia!Ben O’Connor rode a solid TT, his seventh place keeping him in fourth overall.Dani Martínez, meanwhile, dropped from second overall to third …… swapping places with Geraint Thomas who was fourth on the stage.Second on the stage behind Ganna, Pogačar extended his overall lead to 3:41.That’s seven career stage wins now for Ganna at his home Grand Tour.And so on to the final day of the second ‘week’, a 222 km monster with more than 5,700 metres of climbing.It looked like a day for the breakaway, especially when more than 50 riders got up the road, but when Pogačar set sail with 15 km to go we were about to witness something quite special.The Slovenian rode through the remnants of the break …… including Nairo Quintana …… and Georg Steinhauser.Behind, Pogačar’s GC ‘rivals’ battled to limit their losses …… but there would be big time gaps by the summit.Geraint Thomas said afterwards “Everyone just let Pog go and do his thing, basically.”There were moments of levity behind …… including for stage 12 winner Alaphilippe.But up ahead, Pogačar was sinking the boot in to win the stage by 29 seconds ahead of Quintana, 2:32 ahead of Steinhauser, and nearly three minutes clear of the other GC leaders.With his fourth stage win in his debut Giro, Pogačar now leads the race by 6:41 ahead of Martínez. And there’s still six stages to go …
