The flattest stage of the Giro redesigns the classification and the history of the 108th pink race. What was supposed to be a sprinters' festival, the Treviso - Nova Gorica / Gorizia of 190 kilometers, instead saw a combination of rain drops on the cobblestones in a narrow urban passage that literally overturned the predictions.

A crash 24 kilometers from the finish line exploded the group in the leading part, several classification riders were left behind, Giulio Ciccone remained on the ground for a long time due to a bad hit to his right leg. Ayuso, Bernal and Roglic remained in the second group, Tiberi, who also fell, even in the third.

Story within a story, the stage victory went to Kasper Asgreen, Danish rider from EF Education Easypost, who crowned the winning breakaway by dropping Maestri and Marcellusi 4 kilometers from the finish to race alone and give his team the second success in this Giro after Carapaz's. Second and third places for Groves and Kooij in a group including the pink jersey Del Toro.

The group of Ayuso, Bernal and Roglic paid 48 seconds to the pink jersey, Tiberi instead one minute more.

THE RACE - Stage divided between Italy and Slovenia for the fourteenth day of the Giro, 195 km from Treviso to Nova Gorica with 3 mountain passes all concentrated in the last part of the race. After the first 150 km almost flat, the group had to face the fourth category climb of San Martino and then enter the final 13 km circuit with the double climb of the Saver climb that ended 7 km from the finish. It was a suggestive start with Treviso all in celebration, then near kilometer zero the pink race wanted to celebrate the Pinarello family for the 50 years since their first Giro victory on Pinarello bikes.

Not even time for Stefano Allocchio to wave the start flag that the race immediately exploded reaching over 60 km/h. Many teams moved to attack and in the first kilometers an interesting group of 11 athletes including Wout Van Aert broke away. The fugitives however did not manage to go beyond 30" of advantage, thanks to the teams left out who worked hard to close on the head of the race. The decisive breakaway formed after 22 km and saw 4 athletes as protagonists: Kasper Asgreen (EF Education), Davy Clement (Groupama Fdj), Louis Meintjes (Intermarche Wanty), Mirco Maestri (Polti Visit Malta), Martin Marcellusi (VF Group Bardiani CSF Faizan). The leaders, immediately reduced to four after Mentjes stepped down, reached a maximum of 2 minutes advantage over the group that was always controlled by Visma Lease a Bike and Alpecin Deceuninck.

The race was suddenly overturned about 24 kilometers from the finish when a Bahrain Victorious rider's crash literally broke the group. Team Visma Lease a Bike took advantage of the situation and managed to take away a group of about twenty riders with the team's sprinter Olav Kooij and classification rider Simon Yates. Great reflexes from the pink jersey Isaac del Toro who, although forced to put his feet on the ground, still managed to immediately get back on the wheels of the first part of the group, as did Richard Carapaz. Juan Ayuso, Primoz Roglic and Egan Bernal were forced to chase, while it went worse for Antonio Tiberi who crashed and had to change bikes. Among those involved were also Mads Pedersen, excluded from the stage victory games, and a painful Giulio Ciccone.

While the various groups were counting their members, the race literally exploded, 6 km from the finish Kasper Asgreen, who remained at the head with Mirco Maestri and Martin Marcellusi, said goodbye to his breakaway companions and began his ride towards the finish line. Useless were the attempts of the pink jersey group to get back to the fugitive, who arrived in Nova Gorica with arms raised. Second place for Keden Groves (Alpecin Deceuninck) and third Olava Kooij (Team Visma Lease a Bike) who had to settle for the consolation sprint.

The general classification came out totally overturned at the end of the stage. Isaac del Toro in fact consolidated his pink jersey by gaining 48" advantage over Ayuso, Roglic and Bernal and a full 1'44" over Tiberi.

Tomorrow the pink race will restart from Fiume Veneto to arrive in Asiago after 219 km. It will be the first true mountain stage of this edition with the climb towards Monte Grappa and then the second category GPM of Dori and certainly there will be action from those who today remained behind compared to Del Toro.

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FINISH ORDER

1 Asgreen Kasper EF Education-EasyPost 04:04:40

2 Groves Kaden Alpecin-Deceuninck + 16

3 Kooij Olav Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 16

4 Aular Orluis Movistar Team + 16

5 Oldani Stefano Cofidis + 16

6 Maestri Mirco Team Polti VisitMalta + 16

7 Gee Derek Israel-Premier Tech + 16

8 Pidcock Tom Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team + 16

9 Carapaz Richard EF Education-EasyPost + 16

10 Honore Mikkel EF Education-EasyPost + 16

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

1 DEL TORO Isaac UAE Team Emirates - XRG 50:37:55

2 YATES Simon Team Visma | Lease a Bike 1:20

3 AYUSO Juan UAE Team Emirates - XRG 1:26

4 CARAPAZ Richard EF Education - EasyPost 2:07

5 ROGLIČ Primož Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe 2:23

6 GEE Derek Israel - Premier Tech 2:54

7 CARUSO Damiano Bahrain - Victorious 2:55

8 TIBERI Antonio Bahrain - Victorious 3:02

9 BERNAL Egan INEOS Grenadiers 3:38

10 ARENSMAN Thymen INEOS Grenadiers 3:45