Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) has not put a foot wrong on this Giro d'Italia and has also enjoyed some luck going his way, though that was tested on the road to Cassano Magnago on stage 14 today.
The Irish rider was in the bunch, over 20 minutes down on the breakaway, when he suffered a puncture with 8km to go. That was much too late to wait for his team car and so he got assistance from his team mate on the roadside and began the nervous chase back onto the group during the finale.
Thankfully, the 26-year-old Cork man was able to get back into the group and protected his general classification position; a massive relief after working himself into 7th overall after two weeks of racing.
However, because he had taken his team mate Campbell Stewart's bike, the timing chip credited Dunbar with Stewart's time, who rolled across the line some 24:22 down on the stage winner and 3:11 down on the bunch.
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That meant when the official results were issued, Dunbar was listed as 131st on the stage, or second from last. And as a result of being credited with that time on the stage, he had slipped from 7th overall down to 14th, at 7:24.
Thankfully, however, that result has now been corrected, with Dunbar still inside the top 10 overall and now firmly on course to likely finish even higher in the general classification when the race finishes in Rome tomorrow week.
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Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ) is the new race leader even though he had started today's 194km stage from Sierre to Cassano Magnago in 23rd place overall at 18:37. He made the large breakaway today, and though he could only manage 15th on the stage he gained enough time to take the race leader's jersey from Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers).
That means everyone in the top 10 this morning moves down one place, including Dunbar. The Irishman is now 8th overall, some 4:13 down on Armirail. However, Dunbar did not lose any time to the rest of the general classification men.
When the breakaway split, eight men were left out front to fight it out for stage victory, with German Nico Denz (Bora-hansgrohe) claiming winning from Derek Gee (Israel Premier Tech) and Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost); those top three all on the same time with a one-second gap to the next five.
It was Denz's second stage win, having already claimed stage 12. Meanwhile, 2nd placed Gee has been on the attack throughout this race and today was his third 2nd place of Giro 2023.
While Armirail was well out of contention to win today - and placed 15th some 53 seconds down on Denz - the breakaway gained so much time he is now the surprise race leader. He leads by 1:41 from Geraint Thomas, the Ineos Grenadiers man he has taken the maglia rosa from.
More to come.
