Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale also amazes at the Giro d'Italia 2024

Valentin Paret-Paintre gives a new victory to Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, the 15th of this season, after culminating with power the tough breakaway of the day in the Giro d'Italia 2024. Tadej Pogacar continues as the leader in a stage where his team barely had to work and where he simply controlled his rivals in the final part under the maxim of saving the maximum efforts possible for the month of July.

Valentin Paret-Paintre takes the victory in stage 10 of the Giro d'Italia 2024

The Giro d'Italia returns after the rest day enjoyed by the cyclists yesterday and for some, their legs are surely going to hurt a lot right from the start of this second week. The race resumed with a new medium mountain stage in southern Italy with a route between Pompeii and the uphill finish at Bocca della Selva, a 10 km climb with gradients between 7 and 8%.

Being a medium mountain stage, as often happens, many high-level cyclists had marked this day for a victory from the breakaway. This caused a very fast start in a first flat third of the stage before facing the mountainous terrain. In the initial part, a trio of escapees was formed, composed of Quinten Hermans, Simon Clarke, and Alexandro De Marchi.

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However, they did not manage to open up too much of a gap as attacks and a high pace continued behind them. On one hand, attacks were driven by those seeking their place in the breakaway, and on the other hand, due to the push of the teams of fast men, looking for points in the first intermediate sprint, located before the start of the climbs.

In fact, Clarke and De Marchi were left alone after Hermans dropped off shortly before the sprint to allow his teammate Kaden Groves to score more points towards the maglia ciclamino. From there, the road began to become mountainous, first with a non-categorized climb and then with the ascent to Camposauro, classified as a 2nd category climb, where attacks returned and managed to neutralize the breakaway.

Gradually, this new group increased to 32 units with names like Juanpe López, Esteban Chaves, Simon Geschke, Julian Alaphilippe, the Paret-Paintre brothers, or Romain Bardet riding in relative harmony, increasing their lead with the consent of a peloton led by UAE Team Emirates that moderated the pace.

After that, the race entered into a tough territory with a route that left no room for rest. After passing through the Intergiro, hostilities began among the escapees, seeking the coveted "breakaway from the breakaway." Jan Tratnik was the first to make his move and managed to open a gap of one minute relatively quickly, while behind him, a quartet formed by Valentin Paret-Paintre, Marco Frigo, Andrea Bagioli, and Romain Bardet went after the Visma-Lease a Bike rider.

The race reached the final climb with Tratnik seeming to be able to achieve victory thanks to his good pace. However, he did not count on the power of the two Frenchmen who first made sure to leave the quartet in a duo and then gradually began to close the gap on Jan Tratnik. When the difference seemed to stall, Valentin Paret-Paintre made a change of pace that left his companion unable to react and quickly neutralized the Slovenian to launch an attack for the victory without even getting on his wheel.

Romain Bardet did the same and kept up the fight to catch his compatriot, but he could do nothing against Paret-Paintre who achieved his first victory as a professional cyclist here, adding another stage win in the Giro d'Italia to the family's record after his brother Aurelien won one last year.

Meanwhile, in the peloton, several teams took turns in pulling to reduce the gap of the escapees in order to prevent riders like Romain Bardet from getting closer in the general classification. We barely saw a timid move from Antonio Tiberi, to which Pogacar responded without difficulty, with O'Connor closing for the rest of the group. Despite the lack of attacks, the pace in the peloton was high, so the group arrived completely depleted. So much so that even a cyclist of the caliber of Cian Uijtdebroeks was dropped with the finish line in sight, losing valuable seconds.

Stage 10 Classification

1. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) 3h43'50''
2. Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL) +29''
3. Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1'01''
4. Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek) +1'18''
5. Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) +1'25''
6. Simon Geschke (Cofidis) +1'25''
7. Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) +1'25''
8. Domenico Pozzovivo (VF Group-Bardiani-CSR-Faizane) +1'25''
9. Nicola Conci (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +1'41''
10. Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost) +1'56''

General Classification

1. Tadej Poga?ar (UAE Team Emirates) 36h46'08''
2. Dani Martinez (Bora-Hansgrohe) +2'40''
3. Geraint Thomas (INEOS-Grenadiers) +2'58''
4. Ben O'Connor (INEOS-Grenadiers) +3'39''
5. Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike), +4'15''
6. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) +4'27''
7. Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL) +4'57''
8. Lorenzo Fortunato (Astana) +5'19''
9. Filipo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) +5'23''
10. Einet Rubio (Movistar Team) +5'28''