Last week Italian chrono king Filippo Ganna sat on the 2024 Giro d’Italia’s first time trial hot seat for a long time before his spot was usurped by Tadej Pogačar, but on Saturday’s second time trial Ganna got his revenge, beating the pink jersey by 29 seconds. It was Ganna’s sixth career Giro time trial triumph. Pogačar now leads Geraint Thomas by 3:41 at the top of the standings.
The Course
A slightest of ripples characterized the telemetry of this 31.2-km time trial from Castiglione delle Stiviere to Desenzano del Garda. Time Check 1 was at the 7.8-km marker and the second was at Kilometre 23.2.
You could bank on movement within the top-10, and Thomas was expected to make up the 16 seconds separating him from second-place Dani Martinez and put daylight between himself and fourth-place Ben O’Connor.
The Ineos boys took over from Visma-Lease a Bike’s Edoardo Affini, who stopped the clock at 36:32. First Grenadier Tobias Foss posted 36:28 and immediately after Ganna smashed his teammate’s marker with 35:02. Ganna also held the best split times.
Australian national chrono champ Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) slotted into second place behind Ganna. American Grenadier Magnus Sheffield posted the second-best time at Check 2 and then crashed on his right side, sifting down to seventh by the finish line.
Once the start list hit Esteban Chaves, 15th on GC, the gaps between the riders increased to three minutes.
At the first time check, the story was O’Connor not losing too much time to Thomas, Martinez losing time to the Brit and Pogačar four seconds faster than Ganna. Up ahead at the finish line Grenadier Thymen Arensman jumped over Plapp into second place. With 16.5 km ridden, the pink jersey was only a second faster than Ganna.
By Time Check 2, O’Connor had lost 14 seconds to Thomas, who started the day 16 seconds in arrears of Martinez, but was now 16 seconds in the good. Pogačar was 10 seconds slower than Ganna after 23.2 km.
Thomas took back his runner-up spot and padded his lead over O’Connor with the fourth fastest ride. Martinez will be wary of O’Connor only 39 seconds off the final podium spot. Arensman rocketed up to sixth from 10th and Einer Rubio was dumped from the top-10 in favour of O’Connor’s French teammate Alex Baudin.
Sunday’s last stage before the final rest day is very long at 222 km…
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