Second in the stage: Denz narrowly missed the Giro coup

Gualdo Tadino (SID) German professional cyclist Nico Denz (Waldshut-Tiengen) narrowly missed victory on the longest stage of the 101st Giro d'Italia. The 24-year-old from Team AG2R had to narrowly admit defeat to the Slovenian Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) in the sprint of two breakaways after 244 km and 6:04:52 hours between Penne and Gualdo Tadino in Umbria and came second. For Denz, who is only taking part in his second major tour after the Vuelta 2017 and does not yet have a professional victory under his belt, it was still the greatest success of his career. The pink jersey of the overall leader was successfully defended by Briton Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), who earned valuable bonus seconds as winner of the intermediate sprint and finished the stage in the large field 34 seconds behind Mohoric and Denz. Almost 20 kilometers from the finish, Denz from South Baden had caught up with a leading duo with Mohoric and the Italian Davide Villella (Astana). Villella fell back shortly afterwards, but in the final sprint against Denz, who was a year older than him, Mohoric was the stronger and cleverer driver. "He showed that he is stronger than me," said Denz fairly, "he deserves the win." Denz continued that he felt really "strong" in the morning. "I knew at the briefing that I could try today. The stage was very fast, I thought: now or never." The loser of the day was the previous overall runner-up Esteban Chaves. Yates's Colombian teammate had health problems and was unable to follow early on. Chaves was left far behind, reached the finish more than ten minutes behind and thus lost all chances of winning the Giro. Yates now leads the overall classification by 41 seconds over defending champion Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) from the German team Sunweb, who briefly fell behind after a defect 18 km from the finish. The four-time time trial world champion Tony Martin (Cottbus/Katusha-Alpecin), who wants to look for his chances in the second and third weeks of the Giro, was part of a 17-strong breakaway group that set off shortly after the start. At times Martin tried to be a soloist, but before the middle of the race the field caught up with the breakaways. Martin finally finished in the large group around Yates, which also included German hopeful Maximilian Schachmann (Berlin/Quick-Step Floors), who successfully defended his top 20 position in the overall ranking. The eleventh stage over 156 km between Assisi and Osimo offers some short but crisp climbs. The finale in the last one and a half kilometers with an incline of up to 16 degrees is particularly suitable for sensitive attacks. The next classic high mountain stage will take place on Saturday at the mountain finish on Monte Zoncolan in the Carnic Alps.

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Second in the stage: Denz narrowly missed the Giro coup

The Slovenian Matej Mohoric secured the day's victory in the sprint at the 101st Giro d'Italia. This was at the expense of a German who had the first professional victory of his career in mind.

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