Giro d'Italia 2022 - What can we expect from the second week of the Giro with maglia rosa on the line?

More storylines emerged from Sunday’s summit showdown on Blockhaus than an entire season of Game of Thrones – from Natnael Tesfatsion’s high-speed crash on the descent of the Passo Lanciano to the longest uphill sprint you’ll likely see from Jai Hindley, as the plucky Spaniard Juanpe Lopez battled to save his pink jersey in the Australian’s wake. Many things were confirmed during the brutal 191km test, most notably Tom Dumoulin still being well short of his GC level and the poor state of Simon Yates’s knee following his crash on the road to Etna last Tuesday.

And after Wilco Kelderman lost a heap of time, we also have a better idea of who is emerging as Bora-Hansgrohe’s leader from their initial quartet of GC options: Hindley’s win to deny Romain Bardet and Richard Carapaz drew quite an emphatic line in the sand. Ad/> But at the same time, the second major summit finish of the race did not – as many feared beforehand – kill the Giro off as a contest.

Quite the contrary. Mirroring the closeness of the Stage 9 finish, we still have five riders within 20 seconds of the maglia rosa and only 1' 27" separating the top 12.

What’s more, we also saw a fightback of sorts from the race’s elder statesmen as Vincenzo Nibali, Domenico Pozzovivo and Alejandro Valverde defied their combined age of 118 to finish in the top 10 on arguably the toughest finish of the entire Giro. Giro d'ItaliaWatch shocking moment Giro race leader Lopez throws bottle at rival2 HOURS AGO Before we assess what to look out for in the second week of racing, let’s just dwell a little on some of the main talking points after a day of high drama in Abruzzo.