Good morning,
Will Pogačar triumph again?
Astana Qazaqstan are also now a man down at this year's Giro.
Ethan Vernon abandons due to illness
We've had another abandon come through. Marius Mayrhofer (Tudor Pro Cycling) won't be on the start line this morning.
The riders have now rolled out of the unofficial start. We've got a few mins of neutralised racing now as they make their way to kilometre 0.
Looks like Rod Ellingworth is in one of the Giro race director's cars today.
And the flag is dropped.
134 km to go: Clarke and Hermans have a gap of about 20 seconds but there are several riders attempting to join them.
130km to go: Hello, its Adam Becket here taking over while Tom goes for his lunch. I'm hungry already. Clarke and Hermans have almost 30 seconds on the peloton, but attacks are still coming, although the road is a bit blocked behind. Now EF Education-EasyPost, Arkéa-B&B Hotels and others are trying, as is an Ineos Grenadiers rider...
128km to go: It's Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers) who's on the front, as the peloton is all stretched out once again. Whenever I'm watching the Giro, it seems to refuse to quiet down. Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) is also up there.
127km to go: The advantage is down to just 11 seconds now. Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost) is the man leading the charge, followed by his teammate Jefferson Cepeda.
126km to go: Everyone wants to be in this breakaway, it seems. There is no rest.
124km to go: Louis Barre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) looks like he has come off his bike slightly. Not the time for that.
123km to go: Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla) has caught Clarke and Hermans, who have just 11 seconds on the peloton. The elastic is yet to snap, that's for sure.
121km to go: EF Education-EasyPost are not sleeping on this stage. Stefan De Bod is putting it all in to get up the road. Could this be the quartet? It's not a lot of time.
120km to go: There's a lot of head shaking from Clarke and De Marchi here. They're trying to get Hermans to work, one supposes. But it's all reasonably performative.
118km to go: De Bod, by the way, is in no-man's land, and is about to be caught. The front of the peloton is still very strung out.
115km to go: The race has averaged 53km/h for the first half an hour, by the way. The trio up front - De Marchi, Hermans, and Clarke - now have 30 seconds again. And breathe.
110km to go: The peloton is trying to shut any further attacks down it seems, but is that sustainable? Henok Mulubrhan (Astana Qazaqstan) is among the latest attackers. There's a lot of riders trying to get up the road. Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) is going too. It's all happening.
106km to go: Race situation update - Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech), Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco-AlUla) remain up front, now with an advantage of 53 seconds.
103km to go: I would tell you who was in the latest attack, but this feels reasonably futile until something has actually established itself. The trio out front now have a minute, and there are 11ish riders trying to escape.
100km to go: As the Giro's TV director decided to show us a castle, another attack happened. There's Bardiani, Astana, Groupama-FDJ, dsm-firmenich PostNL and Intermarché-Wanty all trying now.
98km to go: The five riders chasing are Simone Velasco (Astana-Qazaqstan), Clément Davy (Groupama-FDJ), Lilian Calmejane (Intermarché-Wanty), Gijs Leemreize (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Giulio Pellizzari (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè). That might be it.
96km to go: Yeah, that's not happening. Apologies for cursing this group. Velasco is still trying but the peloton are just there. The trio up the road only have 52 seconds on the bunch, too.
95km to go: Spare a thought for Clarke, Hermans and De Marchi, who have been racing at full speed while not getting any help from behind. You feel they need more than three riders to last to the finish.
94km to go: Attacks go again, and peloton has attempted to block the road behind. There are two Visma-Lease a Bike riders in there, including Attila Valter, and Filippo Ganna of Ineos Grenadiers. This is a powerful move.
92km to go: Riders are still trying to get up the road. Things are still LOUD.
91km to go: The nine riders in between the peloton and the trio up front are Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Henok Mulubrhan and Simone Velasco (both Astana-Qazaqstan), Simon Geschke (Cofidis), Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek), Edoardo Affini and Attila Valter (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Luca Covili (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè). They are 30 seconds behind the break out front. The climbing has also begun.
89km to go: Hermans has been dropped up front. Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took some points there at the first intermediate sprint. It rather looks like everything is coming back together...
87km to go: Just Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla) remain up the road now, 28 seconds ahead of the peloton. We've had an hour of hectic racing.
79km to go: Tom Thewlis back here and ready to take you through to the finish.
79km to go: Not a good sign for Jayco-AIUla's Luke Plapp whose disappearing off the back of the bunch.
Meanwhile we've got a nicely sized little group trying to get across to De Marchi and Clarke at the head of the race.
Simone Velasco and Davide Ballerini (Astana Qazaqstan)
Simon Geschke (Cofidis)
Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin Deceuninck)
Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step)
Valentin Paret-Peintre (Decathlon- AG2R La Mondiale)
Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost)
Andrea Bagioli and Juanpe Lopez (Lidl-Trek)
Romain Bardet (dsm firmenich post NL)
Michael Hepburn (Jayco-AIUla)
Martin Marcellusi (VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizane)
Alaphilippe is desperate for a stage win. Great to see him animating the race again.
Juanpe Lopez is hammering it down this descent now.
70 km to go: The chase group are 30 seconds away from the front of the race now.
Tobias Foss (Ineos Grenadiers), Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease a Bike), Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) and Domenico Pozzovivo (Bardiani) are all of the riders that have joined the chase group.
Ooooft! That was sketchy,
A large labrador just wondered off the pavement into the middle of that chase group. That very nearly caused a nasty crash indeed.
The two leaders (De Marchi and Clarke) and the chase group are all onto the first major climb of the day, the Camposauro, which is ranked as a category 2 climb (6.1 km at 7.5%).
64km to go: The chase group are working nicely as a group as they try to get back on terms with Clarke and De Marchi.
63km to go: The chase group have literally just caught De Marchi and Clarke.
62 km to go: So the breakaway's advantage currently stands at 2:50.
News has just filtered through that the Stelvio pass has been pulled from this year's Giro.
The mountain was set to feature on stage 16 and was this year's Cima Coppi.
Anyway back to the action.
38 km to go: Looks like Clarke and De Marchi are long gone from this front group now. The duo evidently have paid for their previous efforts.
Tobias Foss is also struggling in the breakaway. He seems to be yo-yoing off the back of that large lead group.
According to the television reporters, the rain is hammering down at the finish at Bocca della Selva.
As we approached the top of that uncategorised bump in the road several riders jumped off the front of the lead group.
31km to go: We've got four riders behind that move from Tratnik now.
Today's stage will almost definitely be contested by someone from this breakaway now.
Bardet is riding himself back into the top ten in the general classification here, but it looks like they're losing time on Tratnik.
The roads look pretty slick here as we gradually get towards the base of the final climb.
20 km to go:
Tratnik has just taken three bonus seconds at the final sprint point of the day at Cusano Mutri.
We're onto Bocca della Selva now.
Meanwhile at the head of the race, Tratnik has put ten seconds into the Bardet group.
Jan Tratnik is absolutely flying. He has a minute now on the Bardet group.
13 km to go: Marco Frigo has been dropped from the Bardet group.
12km to go: Paret-Peintre and Bardet drop Bagioli. It's now or never really if they want to bridge across to Tratnik.
10 km to go: The jump from Bardet and Paret-Peintre has shaved a bit of time off Tratnik's lead but not much.
9km to go: Tratnik looks like he's starting to tire now.
6 km to go: Tratnik still has 40 seconds on the chasers. They can see him up ahead though as they tackle a relatively straight section on the climb. They're going to struggle to catch Tratnik at this rate.
Bardet and Paret-Peintre need to up this tempo ASAP.
Tratnik launched his initial attack with more than 37 kilometres left to race. This has been some effort from the Slovenian.
3.6 km to go: Caruso is pacing on the front of the peloton now for Bahrain.
They're determined to keep Antonio Tiberi in sixth place if they can help it.
Woah.
2.7 km to go: It's all over for Tratnik. Paret-Peintre is about to catch him.
He's gone straight past the Slovenian and is on his way to victory now.
Looks like we're about to get some GC action behind.
Paret-Peintre wins the stage for Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale.
We'll have a stage report for you shortly.
Here goes Ben O'Connor. He's looking to claw time back on the GC.
Behind, there was not much change in the group of favourites. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) tried something, but ended up gaining no time on Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers).
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, by the way, have won an astonishing 15 times this season. Last year they managed just nine. Is it all down to their new Van Rysel bikes?
Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) lost a bit of time today, 13 seconds in fact, as did Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious), who dropped four. They still maintain their fifth and sixth places on GC, however. Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL), meanwhile, has jumped up to seventh overall thanks to his exploits in the break.
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