Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF) took a hugely surprising victory in today’s almost completely flat stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia when he and three breakaway companions managed to hold off a hard-chasing peloton. The Italian was clearly the strongest in the finale and easily beat Matteo Busato (Southeast) and Alessandro Malaguti (Nippo-Vini Fantini) in the sprint. Richie Porte (Sky) had a puncture in the finale and so lost 47 seconds to Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) who defended the overall lead.

One year ago Bardiani-CSF had an amazing Giro d’Italia when they won three stages in the second half of the race. Their run of success started when Marco Canola took a hugely surprising win on a day tailor-made for sprinters.

Today history repeated itself when a break made up mostly of riders from pro continental teams turned out to be surprisingly strong on the easiest stage in the first half of the Giro. And again Bardiani had the strongest rider in the group that sprinted for the win as Nicola Boem turned out to be the strongest of the four riders that decided the stage.

Boem had joined forces with Oscar Gatto (Androni), Alan Marangoni (Cannondale-Garmin), Alessandro Malaguti and Matteo Busato after an easy start to the stage but they never got much of an advantage. The peloton enjoyed a relaxed ride in the sun for most of the stage but with a big alliance between the sprint teams, the gap never went out to more than 4.40.

Everything seemed to be under control when the gap was 3.00 with 50km to go but suddenly the peloton’s progress stalled. As they entered the final 20km, the escapees still had an advantage of 2.00 and the many domestiques had blown up as it was now only Sander Armee, Stig Broeckx (Lotto Soudal) and Kristof Vandewalle (Trek) working on the front.

Stefan Küng (BMC) tried to exploit the slower pace by launching a strange attack but he was quickly brought back as Caleb Fairly also started to work for Giant-Alpecin. However, the gap was still 1.50 with 15km to go and Armee had now blown up.

With 13km to go, disaster struck for Gatto who punctured out of the lead group and he never made it back to the leaders. With a frustrated attitude, he sat up and waited for the peloton.

With 10km to go, Giant-Alpecin and Trek had blown up and it was now Lampre-Merida riding on the front with Jan Polanc who took a short turn. However, from there all the work was done by Lotto Soudal who went all in by using Maxime Monfort, Adam Hansen and Lars Bak.

With 10km to go, the gap was still 1.10 and the gap was no longer coming down quickly. With 5km to go, it was still 50 seconds and it was clear that only a game of cat and mouse could deny the escapees the win.

At this moment, disaster struck for Richie Porte as he suffered a very untimely puncture. Bernhard Eisel, Salvatore Puccio, Vasil Kiryienka, Kanstantsin Siutsou and Sebastian Henao all waited for him but they never made it back to the front and the Australian ended up losing 47 seconds to Contador.

Meanwhile, the peloton was still working hard to catch the break, with Tobias Ludvigsson (Giant-Alpecin) and Hansen riding hard. Later Katusha took over but when they disappeared, the pace went down as Southeast suddenly rode on the front to protect Busato in the break.

Trek came to the fore to make the lead-out and they suddenly seemed to have a small chance when the escapees started to look at each other. However, Marangoni quickly broke the standstill when he made an attack and built a small gap.

Boem was doing most of the work to bring him back, getting only a bit of assistance from Malaguti, and he made the junction in the final turn with 500m to go. He took a very short moment to recover from his effort and then he launched a long sprint that allowed him to easily hold off Busato and Malaguti in the battle for the win.

Alberto Contador finished safely with the bunch and so defended his 3-second lead over Fabio Aru (Astana). He takes that small advantage into tomorrow’s very hilly stage that includes 5 steep climbs in the first half. The second half is made up of almost four laps of a 25km finishing circuit on the Imola race track that includes a 4km climb and a 7.6km downhill run to the finish.

A flat stage

After a well-deserved rest day, the riders were expected to get a gentle return to racing in stage 10 which brought them over 200km from Civitanova Marche to Forli. It was an almost completely flat run along the coast with only a very small category 4 climb at the midpoint, meaning that it was expected to be a day for the sprinters. However, two late turns with 1100 and 500m to go were set to make it a technical finale.

There were no non-starters when the riders gathered in Civitanova Marche under a beautiful sunny sky and with a temperature of nearly 30 degrees, it was the warmest day yet. With everybody expecting a sprint finish, it was no surprise that the break was established almost from the gun when Alan Marangoni (Cannondale), Matteo Busato (Southeast), Alessandro Malaguti (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Nicola Boem (Bardiani) and Oscar Gatto (Androni) attacked.

Lotto Soudal take control

After 5km of racing, they already had an advantage of 53 seconds and the gap quickly got bigger. After 12km of racing, it was 2.42 but now Lotto Soudal had already hit the front to control the situation.

The Belgian team kept it between 2.00 and 3.00 for a little while before they gradually allowed the gap to get bigger. At the 27km mark, it had gone out to 3.15 and it reached a maximum of 4.05 at the 46km mark.

Gatto punctures

The riders had covered 44.3km in the first hour, making it a fast start to the race. Despite the brisk pace, the escapees weren’t allowed much of a gap though as the peloton started to accelerate.

While Gatto fought his way back to the break after a puncture, the gap was down to 3.40 at the 50km mark. Surprisingly, Ag2r now made an acceleration in the peloton and that brought the gap down to 2.10 just 5km later. However, the peloton calmed down again and after 61km of racing, the gap had again gone out to 3.40.

A sprint alliance

The gap went out to 4.40 as they went through the feed zone with 102km to go but everything seemed to be under control as a big alliance was formed between the sprint teams. Louis Vervaeke (Lotto Soudal), Tom Stamsnijder (Giant-Alpecin), Fumiyuki Beppu (Trek) and Clement Chevrier (IAM) were sharing the workload equally and started to bring the gap down as they went up the only climb of the day.

Malaguti led Marangoni and Busato over the top while the attention was taken by Matteo Pelucchi (IAM) who was dropped on the slopes. Later Beppu led the peloton over the top with a deficit of 4.10.

Pelucchi abandons

The peloton was gradually getting closer and with 66km to go, the gap was only 3.15. At this point, Lotto Soudal added another rider to the chase as Sander Armee also started to work.

IAM stopped their work and the explanation came a little later when Pelucchi was forced to withdraw due to an ankle injury he suffered in stage 2. The gap came down to 2.40 but now the escapees hit the gas.

The gap stabilizes

With 50km to go, they had extended their advantage to 3.00 and even though the peloton quickly brought it down to 2.35, the progress suddenly stalled. Meanwhile, Gatto beat Boem and Busato in the first intermediate sprint while Stamsnijder was first from the peloton.

Beppu swung off an instead Vandewalle came to the fore for Trek but that didn’t really pay off. Calvin Watson quickly took over for the Belgian but the gap was still 2.30 with 25km to go. At this point, Armee also ended his day and let his teammate Broeckx take over and when Watson swung off, Vandewalle came back.

Gatto led Boem and Malaguti across the line in the second sprint with 21km to go while Armee, Broeckx and Vandewalle were first from the peloton 2 minutes later. At this point, it was clear that the break had a chance and in the end Boem surprised the sprinters by taking the win.