Giro d'Italia 2024 Stage 2

May 5, 2024 The route retraced the path up to Oropa in an effort to remember the 25th anniversary of Marco Pantani's storming climb to the sanctuary. It took two attempts but a group did get away in the first 10KM, those riders were Christian Scaroni of Astana, Andrea Piccolo of EF-Education EasyPost, Davide Bais of Team Polti-Kometa, and Filippo Fiorelli and Martin Marcellusi of Bardiani CSF-Faizanè. Ineos took control of the peloton, starting to ride when the break got to 4 minutes. The lead was trimmed to two and a half minutes with just over 60KM to go as the route turned off of the plain and into the rolling hills and twisting roads. Piccolo attacked the other breakaway riders with 52KM to go with an ever-reducing gap from the peloton, down to just 2 minutes. Over the Oasi Zegna climb, Piccolo had extended his lead to a minute over the rest of the break and 3 minutes back to the peloton. The Ineos led peloton brought back over 1 minute on Piccolo over the penultimate climb of the Nelva with 23KM and the Oropa yet to come. Just before the bottom of Oropa, Tadej Pogačar of UAE had a flat front tire and took a small spill going around a right had corner. He was back up quickly with teammates to pace him to the peloton again. UAE took control from Ineos at 9KM to go and caught Piccolo shortly after at 6.5KM from the finish. Pogačar made his move at 4.5KM from the finish and was solo just 300M later. Ben O'Connor of Decathlon AG2R and Geraint Thomas of Ineos were next on the road but they were caught, making a chase group of 12 with 2KM remaining. Pogačar came across the finish line 27 seconds ahead of Dani Martinez of Bora-Hansgrohe and Geraint Thomas. O'Connor slipped out of the chase group and finished 1 minute behind. Pogačar took the Maglia Rosa and, with the stage win, now has a stage in all three Grand Tours.