Julian Alaphilippe wins first Giro d’Italia stage on his race debut

Thursday’s route of the 12th stage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia suggested a bunch sprint, but the day was all about the breakaway, the biggest one of the 107th edition. Julian Alaphilippe, making his Giro d’Italia debut, prevailed in his fourth breakaway of the race to complete his Grand Tour stage win trilogy. He adds a Giro victory to six Tour de France wins and one Vuelta a Espana triumph. Tadej Pogačar stayed safe in pink.

The Course

There were four Cat. 4 climbs in the 193-km route, but the key ones were placed in the final third of the race. Three Cat. 4s combined with a couple of uncategorized ascents would make for a less-than-straightforward sprint day.

A perfect stage for a breakaway today at the #Giro, where the riders will tackle some short but quite hard climbs, with gradients reaching 20%. pic.twitter.com/wLMCSxpHcl

— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) May 16, 2024

The breakaway was enormous and kept growing. By the start of the second Cat. 4 Monsano, that French buccaneer Alaphilippe and Mirco Maestri were 1:04 ahead of a nontet, which was 1:30 ahead of 25 guys, which was almost 3:00 ahead of the peloton. Got all that? Only Bora-Hansgrohe had zero men among those 36. Jan Hirt and Domenico Pozzovivo, part of the third group, were rising up the GC from 11th and 14th respectively.

Alaphilippe and Maestri reached the third Cat. 4 with 55 km remaining still a minute ahead of the nine chasers. Maestri did well to stay with Loulou on the kilometer of 8.1 percent.

With the final Cat. 4 dispatched, 40 km and two uncategorized climbs to go, the front duo had a 1:50 buffer over the closest chase and the Hirt-Pozzovivo group was 4:10 behind and out of it for the victory. In fact, the peloton started to reel in this enormous group.

Twenty-seven klicks remained. The Hirt-Pozzovivo gang were lassoed. The nontet, henceforth named the Jhonatan Narvaez-Benjamin Thomas group after the two 2024 stage winners in its ranks–was +1:17. Its members started missing turns. Back in the pink jersey peloton, Bahrain-Victorious tried to split the field in the crosswinds.

On Thursday’s final ascent, Alaphilippe dropped Maestri. The French swashbuckler had a 40-second advantage with 10 km to race.

Loulou grinned all the way through the final kilometre, exulting in his first win of the season at the line.

Friday’s 13th stage is the only pan-flat road stage of the 107th edition.

2024 Giro d’Italia…