Following Monday’s rest day, Tuesday challenged the Giro d’Italia riders to a stage 10 battle on a hilly route from Scandiano to Viareggio on the Italian west coast. The stage featured one category 2 climb and one category 4 climb.

The Giro peloton started today’s stage under wet and chilly conditions and many riders were wearing rain jackets to protect themselves from the elements and the unusually cold temperatures.

Riders such as Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), and Domenico Pozzovivo (Israel-PremierTech) did not start today’s stage and have abandoned Giro d’Italia 2023 after testing positive for Covid-19 (Corona).

Denmark’s Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost) launched a successful attack with 175 kilometers left of today’s stage. He was later joined by Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa), Derek Gee (Israel-PremierTech), Alessandro di Marchi (Jayco-Alula). The quartet formed today’s lasting breakaway group and built a lead of more than four minutes on the main peloton where Team Movistar and DSM were leading the chase.

On the descent from the category 2 Passo delle Radici mountain pass, Bais was dropped from the front group. Meanwhile, in the main peloton Ineos-Grenadiers had moved to the front while they were struggling to stay warm in the cold and rainy weather. A Bah-rain-Victorious trio tried to use the wet conditions to their advantage by launching an attack on the slippery descend.

The Bahrain-Victorious trio featured Damiano Caruso, Jonathan Milan, and Andrea Pasqualon. They were joined by Ineos-Grenadiers’ Pavel Sivakov. The four riders built a 01:20 minute lead over the chasing peloton but were later caught.

The wet descend also caused multiple crashes. Some crashed in wet corners, others crashed while taking off their rain jackets, yet others crashed while hitting service personnel and sports directors that were helping other crashed riders on the roadsides.

With 40 kilometers left of the stage the advantage of the front trio had dropped to 02:20 minutes as the sprinter teams sent their men to the front of the peloton to increase the speed and reel in the breakaway hopefuls, so sprint aces could fight for an additional stage victory.

In the final part of the stage, it appeared as if the sprinter teams in the main peloton would catch the breakaway group before the finish. However, in the final ten kilometers the batteries of the chasers were empty, and the front trio managed to stay away until the end.

Gee attacked first in the final kilometer, Cort waited, so De Marchi would be forced to work to close the gap to Gee. De Marchi lacked the power and Cort moved past him and caught Gee.

De Marchi later rejoined the front duo, but Cort was the fastest man in the sprint across the finish line and won stage 10 in beautiful fashion for his EF Education-EasyPost team.

“I’m incredibly happy with this victory. For me it’s important to do it today because today was one of the hardest stages I’ve ever done on a bike,” Cort told Roadcycling.com after being celebrated by teammates in the finish area.

“The cold wind made me confused during the stage and I almost didn’t know what was going on,” Cort added. 

“My radio wasn’t working. It was a big fight to get in the breakaway. In the breakaway we didn’t have any other choice than to keep pushing on and it worked in the end when the sprinter teams broke and stopped chasing,” Cort concluded.

In the general classification Geraint Thomas (Ineos-Grenadiers) is the new leader of Giro d’Italia 2023 after Remco Evenepoel abandoned the race due to a Covid-19 infection (Corona). Thomas is two seconds ahead of Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) in second, while Thomas’ teammate Tao Geoghegan Hart is third, five seconds behind the Welshman.

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