
Peter Sagan has won the 10th stage of the Giro d'Italia after his Bora-hansgrohe team dominated on the front, driving the pace hard in a bid to drop the sprinters on the moderate climbs today.
Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished in the bunch, in 58th, as did Nicolas Roche (Team DSM), in 70th place. Martin retains his 8th place overall, 52 seconds off the race lead, going into tomorrow's rest day.
Sagan's team, and the Israel Start-Up Nation squad of Italian fastman Davide Cimolai, did much of the damage today, with stage 2 winner Tim Merlier (Alpecin Fenix), Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka ASSOS) all distanced a long way from the finish.
A crash for Max Kanter (Team DSM) at a very technical section with about 1km to go was a nervous moment for the remaining sprinters and the GC men alike. That incident resulted in gaps emerging in the field, though none of those gaps counted in the general classification as the incident occurred inside the final 3km.
That incident was the second piece of drama in the finale as race leader Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) and 2nd placed overall Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) competed for the time bonuses at the intermediate sprint with 20km to go like it was a stage win.
Both their teams swarmed on the front and in the end it was Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) who took the maximum three seconds. Evenepoel looked impressive in winning the battle for 2nd, and two seconds, with Bernal taking third, and one second.

But Sagan's team mates were the star of the show today; really taking it up with about 60km remaining. Over the following 20km, with some uncategorised climbs and a cat 4 facing the riders, the numbers in the peloton were reduced significantly. And any slim hope the early breakaway may succeed was wiped out.
However, by the time the 139km stage from L'Aquila to Foligno reached its conclusion, Sagan was still under pressure to beat the likes of Cimolai, Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) and Elia Viviani (Cofidis).
It was Gaviria who pushed Sagan closest, and he is now inching towards a big win. But again today, Gaviria and his lead-out man Juan Sebastián Molano combined very poorly.

While Molano made a very strong effort off the front exactly when he needed to, with 400m to the finish, Gaviria didn't follow him.
He let Sagan gain the upper hand just behind Molano and in the final push to the line while Gaviria was gaining ground, he gave himself too much work to do.
However, after some dicey moments already on this Giro, if Gaviria and Molano can gel a bit better, they have the makings of a very useful combination.