Tuesday saw the 109th Giro d’Italia resume with its only time trial, a long chrono that turned out to be a fine day for the Canadians, as Derek Gee-West came fifth to bounce him up to eighth on GC and Nickolas Zukowsky placed 20th. Gee-West beat Jonas Vingegaard, who nonetheless distanced most of his closest rivals, but couldn’t quite run down pink jersey Afonso Eulálio. Filippo Ganna earned his eighth career Giro stage.
Preliminaries
It was expected that Vingegaard would put chunks of time into his GC rivals Felix Gall, Jai Hindley, Arensman and the faltering Giulio Pellizzari, while possibly hauling back 2:24 from Eulálio to take the pink jersey. In 14th on GC, Gee-West was four seconds from Jan Hirt’s 12th place and had 34 seconds to defend from 15th place Egan Bernal.
The Course
A long Grand Tour time trial for the 21st Century, 42 flat Tuscan kilometres from Viareggio to Massa had intermediate time checks at kilometres 16.5, 24.5 and 38.
German Max Walscheid was on the hot seat with 48:10 when Italian champion Ganna started. Ganna soon held the fastest time at the first intermediate check.
Dutchman Sjoerd Bax knocked Walscheid off the hot seat with 47:57. Ganna continued to knock down intermediate check best times and whisked Bax aside with 45:53.
Anticipation rose as the GC top-20 got underway in Viareggio. Soon, three minutes separated the riders’ starts, not one minute. Gee-West rolled down the ramp.
Up the road from Gee-West, Zukowsky was on a good ride, provisionally 15th at the first check, 12th at the second check and 12th again at T3. Gee-West rolled through T1 in ninth place and T2 in sixth spot. The Canadian road champion then came in provisionally fourth with 48:09.
Vingegaard was a single second faster than Gee-West at the first check. But Gall was losing time to the Dane. Vingegaard then fell behind Gee-West at T2, but he was still a minute and a half faster than Eulálio and a minute quicker than Gall. Thymen Arensman shifted Gee-West down to fifth and would jump onto the virtual podium by the end of the day.
Eulálio clung tenaciously to pink.
Wednesday’s eleventh stage had four smaller climbs in the second half of 195 km from Tuscany to Liguria.
2026 Giro d’Italia, Stage 10
1) Filippo Ganna…
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