2021 Giro d’Italia stage 10: Peter Sagan rides Bora-Hansgrohe train for the win

Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) rode a textbook perfect leadout by his team in the final 50km of racing to take the stage 10 win in the 2021 Giro d’Italia.

This is the first bunch sprint win at the Giro d’Italia for the three-times world champion.

“We didn’t drop everyone, but thanks to my team the pressure from other teams was less,” Sagan said. “I’ll take it day by day but I’ll try my best. I had good legs and good speed so we’ll see.”

The 139-kilometer stage from L’Aquila to Foligno, featured just a few lumps before a small climb that summited 38km from the finish line.

🇮🇹 #Giro

🏆 PETER SAGAN WINS THE STAGE! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/BPCex055HU

— BORA – hansgrohe (@BORAhansgrohe) May 17, 2021

How it happened

Bora-Hansgrohe used these undulations to do massive damage to other sprinters, including Dylan Groenewegen and David Dekker (Jumbo-Visma), Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix) who leads the points competition, and Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka-Assos).

A five-man break had dwindled to four, and included breakaway specialist Simon Pellaud (Androni Giaccatoli-Sidermec) and stage 3 winner Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) with 50km to go.

With Bora-Hansgrohe on the accelerator on a small climb onto the only categorized ascent of the day, the catch was made as the main bunch was at the 42km to go mark.

At the top of the climb, with 38km remaining, Sagan’s squad had dispensed with all of the rival sprinters except for Elia Viviani (Cofidis) and David Cimolai (Israel Start-Up Nation).

By the time the peloton was down the backside of this decent, 2020 European champion Nizzolo had ceded nearly half a minute to the big bunch.

While Victor Campanaerts tried to tow his teammate back to the group, the two Qhubeka-Assos riders eventually called quits on the pursuit at 15km to go.

At an intermediate time bonus checkpoint — with no sprint points on offer — Filippo Ganna tried to lead out Egan Bernal (both Ineos Grenadiers) ahead of Remco Evenepeol (Deceuninck-Quick-Step). Bernal could not stick on the wheel of the world time trial champion, and so it was teammate Gianni Moscon who denied Evenepoel the maximum bonus seconds available.

Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe) did a massive turn to bring Sagan several kilometers closer to victory as other teams’ sprint trains maneuvered into position.

The final 10km was flat, and only several roundabouts and a few turns separated Sagan from his first 2021 Giro win.

On the front in the final 8km, UAE-Team Emirates tried to set up Fernando Gaviria. Failing this, Gaviria hopped on Sagan’s wheel. The Colombian was closely shadowed by Viviani, and on his wheel was Cimolai.

Jos van Emden (Jumbo-Visma) tried to tease out any of the sprinters at 4km to go, but none would have it.

The Bora-Hansgrohe leadout exited a left turn at 1km to go still on the front, with Sagan in third wheel.

Sagan was delivered to within 300m from the line, and held Gaviria and Cimolia with ease to take his first win of this year’s Giro.

There were no changes to the GC, with Evenepoel only gaining one second on Bernal from the intermediate time bonus.

What’s to come

After Tuesday’s rest day, stage 11 on Wednesday is a 162-kilometer from Perugia to Montalcino, over a very bumpy route that looks to offer no respite.