Simon Yates extends Giro d’Italia lead as Matej Mohoric wins frantic stage 10

Simon Yates extended his overall lead as Matej Mohoric won stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia from Penne to Gualdo Tadino.

Yates picked up three more seconds on the defending champion Tom Dumoulin by taking bonuses from the intermediate sprint, but his Mitchelton-Scott team-mate Esteban Chaves lost second place overall and dropped out of the top 10 in a blow for the team.

Yates now leads by 41 seconds from the Dutchman Dumoulin, with Thibaut Pinot of Groupama-FDJ in third at 46sec and the home hopeful Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) a minute off the lead.

What was expected to be a quiet transition stage – over the longest distance of the entire Giro at 244km – turned into a frantic day of racing after Chaves was dropped on the category-two climb which opened the day’s racing.

With Quick-Step Floors’ star sprinter and overall points leader Elia Viviani, dropped along with Chaves, the race split into two as several teams in the peloton worked together to distance them.

With 90km left the second group gave up the chase and attention turned to the front, where Yates nipped ahead of Pinot to take the three bonus seconds from the intermediate sprint.

A series of attacks began late in the day with stage honours on the line, and as the tension increased Dumoulin was caught in a small crash, with the Team Sunweb man needing a bike change before chasing back on.

As the attacks petered out the Slovenian Mohoric of Bahrain-Merida stayed clear alongside AG2R La Mondiale’s Nico Denz and had enough to hold off the German at the line. Mohoric finished 34sec ahead of the main bunch, which led by the Irish sprinter Sam Bennett of Bora-Hansgrohe.

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Chris Froome finished safely in the pack and moves up to 10th in the general classification, still two-and-a-half minutes adrift of Yates in the race for the pink jersey.

Stage 11 on Wednesday will be another lumpy one, covering 156km and three categorised climbs between Assisi and Osimo.

Stage 10 result

1 Matej Mohoric (Svn) Bahrain-Merida 6hr 4min 52sec; 2 Nico Denz (Ger) AG2R La Mondiale at same time; 3 Sam Bennett (Ire) Bora-Hansgrohe at 34sec; 4 Enrico Battaglin (It) LottoNL-Jumbo; 5 Davide Ballerini (It) Androni-Sidermec; 6 Mads Würtz Schmidt (Den) Katusha; 7 Francesco Gavazzi (It) Androni-Sidermec; 8 Jarlinson Pantano (Col) Trek-Segafredo; 9 Gianluca Brambilla (It) Trek-Segafredo; 10 José Gonçalves (Por) Katusha all at same time.

General classification

1 Simon Yates (GB) Mitchelton-Scott 43hr 42min 38sec; 2 Tom Dumoulin (Neth) Sunweb at 41 sec; 3 Thibaut Pinot (Fr) Groupama-FDJ at 46sec; 4 Domenico Pozzovivo (It) Bahrain-Merida at 1min 0sec; 5 Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Movistar at 1min 23sec; 6 George Bennett (NZ) LottoNL-Jumbo at 1min 36sec; 7 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing at 2min 8sec; 8 Pello Bilbao (Sp) Astana at same time; 9 Michael Woods (Can) Education First-Drapac at 2min 28sec; 10 Chris Froome (GB) Sky at 2min 30sec.