Tadej Pogačar soared to his fifth Giro d’Italia stage win on Tuesday, climbing through cold and wet weather to win a shortened stage 16 in Santa Cristina Valgardena.
On a day that saw the initially planned route changed and then changed again due to inclement weather, the Giro’s overall leader bided his time until the final few kilometers, when he surged through what was left of a group of prior attackers to win ahead of one of them, 20-year-old Giulio Pellizzari (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), with Daniel Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) in third.
Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) did not fare nearly as well on the chilly day in the mountains, losing a chunk of time on the final climb and dropping from second to third on the overall standings.
Pogačar makes it five
- There was no shortage of drama on Tuesday morning in northern Italy. The route of stage 16 had already been altered to take the peloton over the Umbrailpass instead of the Stelvio, but riders protested the idea of racing the high-altitude climb in miserable conditions. Organizers ultimately cut the Umbrailpass out of the stage and shortened it considerably.
- Once the racing did get underway, the fight to get into the early break was fierce. Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep), Mirco Maestri (Polti Kometa), Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost), and Davide Ballerini (Astana Qazaqstan) formed the move that stuck, but a Movistar-led peloton kept the move on a short leash.
- Alaphilippe eventually went solo. He was still out front when Movistar’s Pelayo Sánchez jumped from the bunch, drawing Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-Samsic) with him, but then Sánchez dropped back with an apparent mechanical issue. Pellizzari and Christian Scaroni (Astana-Qazaqstan) joined Costiou and the trio bridged up to Alaphilippe.
- The newly formed lead quartet rode together for a short while before Alaphilippe dropped and then Costiou attacked with just under 3 km to go. He found some breathing room at first but then Pellizzari countered, catching him and passing him. Behind, Rafal Majka was doing what he has done on practically every finishing climb in the Giro, putting the hammer down in the GC group until giving way to Pogačar.
- When the race leader made his move, he rapidly caught Scaroni and Costiou, and then wore away at Pellizzari’s gap until catching and passing him too. He continued on to win by 16 seconds.
- Thomas and Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R) were among those losing time to their rivals, both arriving 49 seconds behind Pogačar and thus 33 seconds behind Martínez.
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Brief analysis
- Pogačar’s stage-winning ambitions got a huge boost from Movistar. The Spanish team worked hard to keep Alaphilippe and Co. from getting much of a gap over the course of the stage, only to hardly factor in the finale, where UAE’s Majka finally took over.
- Thomas was dropped just before Pogačar went on the attack, and he did not look to be particularly comfortable in the conditions. The 2018 Tour de France winner will have some ground to make up if he wants to reclaim second overall; that said, he seemed to settle into riding a decent pace in the end, and his 33-second gap to Martínez probably could have been worse.
- Thomas’s Ineos teammate Thymen Arensman finished 11 seconds ahead of the Welshman, not far behind Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious). Tiberi and Arensman are fifth and sixth, respectively, on GC, and will continue to battle for the young rider’s jersey here in the final week.
- As he secured his stage victory, Pogačar also extended his already massive lead in the mountains classification. Scaroni, who took some points on the day, will wear the blue jersey on Wednesday, but it’s hard to see anyone taking the actual mountains lead from Pogačar now.
Quote of the day
I was thinking that Pellizzari would win today’s stage and he was close, and I’m super happy that he arrives second also. I really admire him in this Giro already, and he sent me a photo that we took in 2019. I was actually a small kid and he was also a small kid, and it was an amazing memory from Strade Bianche, and now he’s here and he’s going really strong, and maybe he can win a stage this week.”
Tadej Pogačar after his stage 16 victory.
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