2023-05-16 19:55:00
The weather on the way to Viareggio made the day brutally hard, as the Dane explained in the winner’s interview: “One of the worst stages I’ve experienced on the bike. It was so cold today, sometimes we didn’t even know what it was anymore happened around us,” he said.
With constant rain, wind and temperatures not far above freezing, one had to ask oneself whether the shortening of the section demanded by parts of the peloton – by driving the buses over the mountains – would not have been wiser.
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But Giro organizer RCS prevailed and let the race go through as planned. Not only that became clear on Tuesday.
Analysis of the 10th stage: “At least three teams have gambled”
Three things that stood out on the 10th Giro stage.
1) Bucking the trend: Giro rain brings blessings to outliers
With Magnus Cort Nielsen, a rider from the breakaway group triumphed for the fourth time on the tenth day of the Giro. For most sprinters the stage was too tough for a long time in these weather conditions and in the last hour of the race their teams gambled in pursuit of the leading group. When looking at the route profiles of the coming days, it becomes clear that things might go more often like this.
The special thing regarding it is that breakaway victories like in this Giro actually contradict the current trend in professional cycling. In the constant rain, the Giro swims once morest the tide. Because Aurelien Paret-Peintre’s (AG2R – Citroen) success in Stage 4 a week ago was the first-ever triumph of the entire 2023 WorldTour season by a rider who was in the front group for the first half of a race.
Since then, three more have been added: Davide Bais, Ben Healy and Magnus Cort Nielsen.
2) Kämna is now seventh and always wide awake – but…
Now the designated co-captain is the great hope of the Raublingers in his experiment to drive for the first time in an overall ranking in a Grand Tour: Lennard Kämna. With Remco Evenepoel and Vlasov eliminated, the 26-year-old moved up to seventh place overall. The hope expressed before the Giro that he might finish in the top ten in Rome now seems more realistic than ever.
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Kämna has been driving a very bright and strong Giro so far. On the 8th stage to Fossombrone, he let his own high spirits get the better of him on the last climb and therefore lost a few seconds to the best climbers.
But otherwise, with his driving style, he demonstrated an ability that round drivers need: consistency. On no stage so far has he finished further behind than 23rd place. He doesn’t let anything burn, and he doesn’t risk falls due to poor positioning. That’s the way it has to be if you want to be at the top of the rankings.
The biggest problem for Kämna is now his teammate’s positive corona test. The danger that the 26-year-old has become infected like so many others in the peloton has increased.
3) Vine is out of the podium fight
Not only at Bora – hansgrohe broke off a spike from the double leadership on Tuesday. After the 10th stage, the UAE Team Emirates can no longer hope for a podium finish from co-captain Jay Vine. The Australian fell on the wet descent from the Passo delle Radici, then found himself in second place and didn’t have enough allies there to chase down the large group of favorites.
Up to the day’s finish in Viareggio, he lost 10:28 minutes to Geraint Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Primoz Roglic, teammate Joao Almeida and Co. – Vine is now 12:52 minutes missing on Thomas’ pink jersey. For UAE, therefore, everything will now be geared towards the Portuguese Almeida in terms of the overall standings.
In contrast to Bora – hansgrohe, however, UAE has not completely lost its second captain. Unlike Vlasov, Vine, who was not injured in the fall, stays in the running and might still play a very important role in the difficult mountain stages – on the one hand as a precious helper for Almeida, but on the other hand also as a stage hunter, like last year at the Vuelta, when he reached two mountain finishes first.
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