Giro Week 2

A new face in the GC competition an emotional stage win and more.

Stage 8 saw a shake up in the GC standings after Diego Ulissi and Lorenzo Fortunato found themselves first and second after the breakaway made it to the line ahead of the GC favourites.

Then on stage 9 both lost 20 positions in the classification and Isaac Del Toro claimed the Maglia Rosa while his teammate Juan Ayuso climbed up into second making it a 1-2 for UAE Team Emirates XRG. Primoz Roglic on the other hand fell down in the standings to 10th, 2:25 behind the leader. There were lots of emotions running around the Visma Lease a Bike team as Wout Van Aert won the stage after much misfortune over the past months.

The Time Trial on stage 10 saw Roglic and the Yates brothers all make up positions while Daan Hoole took the stage win for Lidl Trek, their 4th of the race so far. Derek Gee was able to move up 8 places on the stage to 12th. Juan Ayuso closed the gap to his teammate going from 1:13 to just 25 seconds.

Stage 11 saw Richard Carapaz take a stage with Isaac Del Toro coming second to sweep up some bonus seconds to extend his GC lead while Caparaz moved up into 6th position ahead of Roglic.

Stage 12 came down to a bunch sprint won by Olav Kooij after an impressive lead-out by Wout Van Aert. Kooij moved up into 2nd in the points classification but is still 72 points behind Mads Pedersen who came 4th on the stage.

Another win for Mads Pedersen on stage 13 with Van Aert coming in second. Isaac Del Toro in third collecting yet more bonus seconds ahead of his rivals as well as moving up into second in the points classification.

Stage 14 saw another shake up in the GC competition while Kasper Asgreen took the stage win after being part of the early break. The current Maglia Rosa was able to cross the line as part of a group 16 seconds down on the winner, this group contained the likes of Simon Yates, Richard Carapaz and Thomas Pidcock. Other GC favourites including Primoz Roglic and Juan Ayuso were caught up by a late crash and crossed 48 seconds down on the current leader. This means that Simon Yates is now second on GC 1:20 down on Del Toro with Ayuso in third, Carapaz in 4th and Roglic in 5th.

List of Classification leaders:

General: Isaac Del Toro

Points: Mads Pedersen

Mountains: Lorenzo Fortunato

Youth: Isaac Del Toro

Teams: UAE Team Emirates - XRG

List of further drop outs

(DNS Stage 9) Koen Bouwman - Team Jayco Alula

(DNF Stage 9) Andrea Pasqualon - Bahrain Victorious

(DNS Stage 14) Brandon Smith Rivera - INEOS Grenadiers