Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates played it safe on the Prati di Tivo stage, easily controlling the strong breakaway and the final climb. Pogačar marked the moves in the final two kilometres and did not attack, instead opting to win the bunch sprint at the end.
There was a strong early breakaway formed including Michael Storer, Magnus Sheffield, Romain Bardet, Jhonatan Narvaez, Pelayo Sanchez and 9 more riders but UAE controlled the stage and only allowed a 35-second lead going into the base of Prati di Tivo. Davide Piganzoli in the peloton spent 2,958 kilojoules for 3:25h, which is 14.05 kj/kg/h. It was a reasonably hard day but nothing extreme by Grand Tour standards in terms of fatigue. In the Giro d’Abruzzo on Prati di Tivo stage Pavel Sivakov in the peloton spent 3,260 kilojoules for 3:36h – 13.11 kj/kg/h. Almost the same stage intensity and kilojoules but today was slightly harder. Even the wind was similar in both races, as there was a tailwind on the final climb.
UAE set a good tempo with Novak, Großschartner and Majka on Prati di Tivo (14.55 km, 7.02%), which is a regular climb but not steep enough to easily create huge gaps. Giro d’Abruzzo stage winner and Prati di Tivo climbing record owner Alexey Lutsenko dropped fast with 10 km to the top. The last breakaway survivor Valentin Paret-Peintre attacked hard but was caught with 4.1 km to go whilst Michael Storer had wisely decided to retreat into the draft of the main GC group rather than stay with the breakaway. As Pogačar was not interested in chasing after the climbing record or achieving a better result on our time x ᵉW/Kg graph he played it conservatively with his 2:36 min GC lead already in the bank. Antonio Tiberi was the first one to attack but Pogačar neutralised his attempt. Arensman, Tiberi and Storer accelerated in the final part of the climb multiple times but Pogačar was controlling everything and with Majka returning to the front, we were headed to a sprint.
Pogačar routinely won the sprint from a 9-man group, taking his third Giro d’Italia stage victory. No one could challenge him when he really decided to open up the legs. The UAE superstar did Prati di Tivo in 36:20 min, averaging 6.17 ᵉW/Kg. Diego Ulissi in Giro d’Abruzzo did the climb in 36:02 min with 6.41 ᵉW/Kg, while Pogačar himself won the 2021 Tirreno-Adriatico stage on Prati di Tivo, pushing 6.41 ᵉW/Kg for 36:06 min. Pogačar definitely could have gone harder but went into energy-saving mode even whilst going for the stage win.
Michael Storer despite being in the early breakaway finished ninth on the day, losing contact with the GC group only in the last metres. The Australian had a 35-second advantage before Prati di Tivo and did it in 37:04 min for 6.04 ᵉW/Kg. 14 riders lost 21 seconds or less on the stage, so it was not particularly selective. Unfortunately the design of Stage 10, on Tuesday after the rest day, appears to be an even easier mountain top finish, so we may have to wait for Stage 15 to Livigno to see big gaps on a road stage between the GC contenders.
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