Giro d'Italia: Tadej Pogačar crashes but then cracks rivals with solo attack to win stage 2 to Oropa

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Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) conquered the mountain finish of Santuario di Oropa to win stage 2 of the Giro d’Italia and took the maglia rosa as the race leader.

The Slovenian launched a powerful solo attack on the steepest moment of the climb to surge away and take stage victory. Dani Martinez (Bora-Hansgrohe) finished second and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) third at 27 seconds. 

Lorenzo Fortunato (Astana Qazaqstan) and Florian Lipowitz (Bora-Hansgrohe) completed the chase to complete the top five. Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) finished another three seconds back in a three-rider group that contained Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Einer Rubio (Movistar).

Stage 1 winner Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) finished 2:03 down and so lost the leader's jersey to Pogačar. He leads Thomas and Martinez by 45 seconds and Uijtdebroeks and Rubio by 54 seconds.

It was Pogačar’s first stage win at the Giro and gave him the trifecta for career stage victories at all the Grand Tours. He has three stage wins at La Vuelta a España and nine stage wins at the Tour de France.

Thomas moved up nine spots in the GC standings to second overall, but said he just didn’t have enough left in his legs to catch the assault of the UAE rider.

“I was on the limit for a while there. The group came up and I tried to get some seconds in the sprint,” Thomas said at the finish.

“I didn’t feel as quite good as I did yesterday, but it’s OK for the second day.”

Just before the final 11.8km to the mountaintop finish at Oropa, disaster struck as Pogačar suffered a flat front tyre and crashed after a corner, with his car  almost hitting him. 

Four riders from his UAE Emirates Team worked to get him back into the reduced peloton, with Rafal Majka the last teammate in line to set up his winning attack with 4.5km to go. Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R) tried to go with Pogačar's attack but suffered, was unable to stay in the chase group and lost a minute.

Pogačar is already in control of the 2024 Giro d’Italia after just two stages. 

“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,” Pogačar said, shrugging off any sense of panic after his crash.

“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. 

“The team was super good today. They brought me back to the front and then we set a pace that we liked and it was perfect.

Pogačar said the plan worked, to attack somewhere between 4.5km and 3.5km to go.

“I don’t know the climb well, and I think everyone else was the first time on this climb. It’s hard to guess where to do certain pacing but I think we did a really good job today. It was good with Rapha Majka on the super hard part, I could attack.” 

“I was on the limit for a while there. The group came up and I tried to get some seconds in the sprint at the finish,” Thomas said at the finish. 

“I didn’t feel as quite good as I did yesterday, but it’s OK for the second day.”

How it unfolded

Stage 2 started in the San Francesco al Campo velodrome, north of Turin, where Filippo Ganna first raced as a boy. 

The 161 km stage headed into the Canavese area, then across to the rice fields near Vercelli before climbing into the hills for the finish at Oropa, which would award the Montagna Pantani prize, in memory of the Italian climber, who won in Oropa in 1999 after shipping his chain at the bottom of the climb and passing 49 riders on the way to the finish.

The sun was out for a second day and Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) wore the maglia rosa with pride at the sign-on. Pogačar avoided the spotlight but was surely plotting revenge after missing out on victory on stage 1.

When the stage started, a first attack was quickly closed down despite a 60 kph moment of racing but a second move got away and Ineos Grenadiers and UAE Team Emirates were happy to let it go. Cofidis were not happy to have missed the move but their chase was marked by Polti-Kometa and EF Education-EasyPost, who did have riders in the break.

Christian Scaroni (Qazaqstan) instigated the next acceleration with 6 km covered and four riders joined him- Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost), Davide Bais (Polti-Kometa), and a pair from VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Martin Marcellusi and Filippo Fiorelli. Of the five, climber Piccolo became the virtual race leader, having started the day at 1:07 back in 37th position.

The breakaway soon opened a gap of 4:00, as Connor Swift did much of the work on the front to defend Narváez’s maglia rosa. With 60 km covered and 100km to go, Swift made it clear on his team radio that he needed a natural break and so Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates) took over on the front of the peloton. Geraint Thomas also stopped for a break as riders calmly passed through the pan-flat and flooded rice fields near Vercelli.

It was the calm before the expected tension and attacks on the road up to Santuario di Oropa, a mountaintop finish on just the second day of racing at this year’s Giro. 

However as the first intermediate sprint approached, Ineos Grenadiers moved all their riders to the front of the peloton, keeping Thomas and Narváez safe at the front. The race was on.

The opening sprint in Valdengo had no suspense, Fiorelli taking the top 12 points in an uncontested effort as the quartet seemed focused on sustaining their metronomic pace, holding a gap at 2:42. As the peloton approached Valdengo, Kaden Groves accelerated to grab the three points on offer as the sixth rider across the line, Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) getting two and Caleb Ewan (Jayco AlUla) the final single digit.

With 63 km to go and the uphill approach to the second intermediate sprint in Croscemosso underway, the five riders began to lose time. Fiorelli was out of the saddle to grab 12 more points at the intermediate sprint and the haul moved him from third to first in the points classification. 

Behind the leaders, several riders crashed, including notable Kooij, Eddie Dunbar and Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) and Nicola Conci (Alpecin-Deceuninck). Kooij was seen at the doctor’s car having his right knee treated, then Dunbar took a turn for a look. All four returned to the peloton but Dunbar would lose 5:56 and any hope of a good GC performance. 

UAE Team Emirates put three riders on the front of the bunch and strung out the group with the acceleration.

With 52 km to go that Piccolo struck out on his own and left his breakaway companions behind in search of glory and the cheers of the public. 

Once on the slopes of Oasi Zegna, a 5.5km ascent at 5.2% average gradient, the Italian opened a margin of 30 seconds. In the chase behind, the peloton slowed at the confluence of road furniture at an intersection and several riders crashed on the narrow section. Attila Valter (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Kevin Vermaerke (dsm-firmenich PostNL) checked their bikes and resumed riding.

While Piccolo rode on, Fiorelli lost contact with the leaders leaving Scaroni, Bais and Marcellusi, as the trio of chasers, and UAE setting the pace to sweep them up. 

Piccolo swiped the mountain points across the category 3 Oasi Zegna, with Marcellusi sprinting for the second-place points from the chase behind. Next up across the next 7 km was Nelva, another category 3 at 5km and 5.4%.

As Piccolo approached the crest of the climb with the final 25km to go, Scaroni accelerated with Marcellusi following but Bais lost touch. Ineos riders set the tempo for the peloton, the gap down to 2:24.

At the back of the group, Simone Velasco (Astana Qazaqstan), Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) and Domenico Pozzovivo (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) crashed. Velasco and Steinhauser were back up quickly, but Pozzovivo’s derailleur hung off the frame and he waited on the side of the road, waving his arms to be seen to quickly take for a new bike from his team car.

The time gap began to fall swiftly with Ineos on the front, but Piccolo held a two-minute margin and grabbed more mountain classification points on his solo effort. From the sprint line in Biella, Piccolo’s advantage dropped below two minutes as the Ineos-driven peloton used the two as the launchpad for the final 11.8km to the mountaintop finish at Oropa.

The crash and the attack on the road to the Santuario di Oropa

As Piccolo went under the sprint banner, Pogačar suddenly slowed and then crashed after a corner due to a puncture to his front tyre. With a swift bike change, and no apparent injuries, the Slovenian went into full-on chase mode with two teammates to close down a 20-second gap to the back of the accelerating peloton.

Pogačar’s crash immediately conjured memories from 1999 when Marco Pantani had a mechanical with 9km to go on the same climb, flew past Laurent Jalabert 3km from the summit to win the stage. 

UAE Team Emirates used four riders to guide Pogačar back into the peloton as the group hit the base of the climb, the Slovenian moving to the front next to Ineos riders Thomas and Filippo Ganna. 

Großschartner took up the pacemaking for UAE as the gradient began to steepen from 7% to 10% and Piccolo was in sight, then the catch was made with 6.5km to go. Next in line for UAE was Mikkel Bjerg who set the pace for a kilometre, his speed spitting a number of riders out of the back.

With a steep section above 10% at 5km to go, only Rafal Majka remained for Pogačar. Then 400 metres later the Slovenian launched with a surge of speed in pursuit of his first Giro stage victory.

Thomas and O’Connor accelerated from what remained of the peloton but Pogačar blew them off his wheel and quickly opened a 15-second gap. He was racing against himself, Pantani’s record time for the climb and his own destiny.

Begins him the pace slowed and a group of chasers formed but O’Connor was not able to stay with them after going too deep to try to stay with Pogačar.

With 2km to go, Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) attacked to shake out the chase group and hurt O’Connor.

Ahead Pogačar stretched his lead to 30 seconds and was cheered towards victory by thousands of tifosi. He took the right and then left turns to the foot of the Oropa sanctuary and had a moment to savour his victory, his first stage in the Giro d’Italia and his first maglia rosa.

Everyone else raced to limit their losses, just as they might now do for the rest of the Giro d’Italia.

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