A day later than might have been expected, Tadej Pogačar soared to his first Giro d’Italia stage victory and into the pink jersey at the Santuario di Oropa after overcoming a poorly timed puncture at the foot of the final climb. He now leads the race by 45 seconds over Geraint Thomas and Dani Martínez with – err – 19 stages to go.
- The five-man early breakaway began to fracture after the InterGiro sprint with around 52 km still to go. Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost) went solo with three climbs to go, and the young Italian ultimately held onto a one-minute-30-second lead at the foot of the iconic Oropa climb.
- Before the climb could begin in earnest, there was a bonus sprint where two and one seconds were available to the peloton, but disaster struck Pogačar as the bunch wound through town, a front puncture holding him up just outside 11 km to go, and a resultant tumble at the hands of his tubeless tyre adding insult to injury as the team car arrived – it was an eerie throwback to Marco Pantani’s own storied attack on Oropa in 1999 after a chain issue at the bottom.
- A relaxed Pogačar was able to get going again fairly quickly and was back in the bunch in no time, but he did miss out on the sprint, where Geraint Thomas and Filippo Ganna took the prize on offer – this narrowed Thomas’s deficit to Pogačar to 12 seconds.
- After his slight scare, UAE Team Emirates made short work of bringing their leader to the front of the peloton and eating into Piccolo’s advantage as the climb progressed, catching the Italian 6.5 km from the top as big names began to drop off the back including Julian Alaphilippe, Max Schachmann and Nairo Quintana.
- Rafał Majka was Pogačar’s last man, and he put in one last effort before pulling off 4.5 kilometres from the top, which was Pogačar’s cue to attack.
- Ben O’Connor was poised to follow on the Slovenian’s wheel, with Thomas sitting on his own, and though the Australian was able to hang on for a hundred metres or so, neither could match Pogačar, who was alone with more than four kilometres remaining.
- With Pogačar reaching out for victory, O’Connor and Thomas were soon joined by a small group of favourites which took a short while to get organised before Florian Lipowitz took control for his teammate Dani Martínez – who had apparently suffered a mechanical himself that had resulted in Lipowitz being called to help him back into contention.
- After his early effort to follow Pogačar’s attack, O’Connor began to struggle and dropped out of the chase group, left to limit his losses like other dropped GC contenders including Romain Bardet, Alexey Lutsenko, Damiano Caruso and Antonio Tiberi.
- Pogačar pushed on all the way to the line before raising his arms to celebrate, and Martínez out-punched Thomas in the group sprint for second, 27 seconds behind the winner.
Quotes of the day
Pogačar kept it simple at the finish.
“I just wanted to win today, test the legs a little bit. The dream was to win a stage and take the pink jersey. Now I can relax a little bit the next few days with the team, and we can stay safe in the sprints.”
He added a short explanation of what had happened through the town at the foot of the climb.
“I was quite calm, I just had a super-fast flat tyre, and I think I broke the wheel. There was also a bit of confusion. I wanted to stop before the corner, not after the corner. The team said to me ‘after the corner, after the corner’ and I was confused a little bit, then I crashed. It was nothing serious.”
Geraint Thomas, meanwhile, was pragmatic, but content with his efforts in a tough finish.
“Everything is still possible, but Tadej … He is Tadej.”
Brief analysis
- While it’s still too early to pass judgment on any one team – Sepp Kuss was near invisible in the opening stages of last year’s Giro before becoming the keystone of the team’s support crew – it certainly appears that Bora-Hansgrohe is emerging as a powerful rival to Pogačar (and UAE Team Emirates). According to Bora sports director Bernie Eisel, his team’s leader Martínez had to overcome a mechanical of his own before the Oropa climb, and yet with the help of a flying Florian Lipowitz, he was able to climb to second on the stage and third overall, with the young German making it two Bora riders in the stage top five. Lipowitz lost a chunk of time on stage 1 so they’re not going to be able to do quite the two-pronged tactic they might have hoped, but add Schachmann’s ability on punchy terrain, as well as young Italian Giovanni Aleotti, and they might be a team to watch.
“In the end we did well,” Martínez told Ciclismo Internacional. “We are doing well in the rankings. That was what we were looking for. The feeling is good. And this result is a boost for self-confidence and morale. There’s no doubt about that. Now we just have to concentrate on what is yet to come, because the majority of the Giro is still ahead of us.”
- Over at Ineos Grenadiers, Arensman lost yet more time on the way to Oropa to further rule out their own two-pronged assault, but the rest of the team looked pretty well in control until Pogačar happened. Filippo Ganna did a lot of work, including in the hills, which indicates a return to form on top of his 11-place finish on yesterday’s opening stage, and Magnus Sheffield was alongside Thomas and Narváez for much of the finishing ascent. Narváez is still up there as the team’s second-best on GC, with Arensman next 4:07 down. It remains to be seen if the young Dutchman can live up to the promise of his sports director who said after stage 1 that Arensman should come into his own in the third week. Maybe a breakaway day could see him sneak back into contention, if he’s allowed …
Brief results:
GC top 10 after stage 2:
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