DISCUSSION Giro d'Italia Stage 13 | Can Pedersen match Pogacar's six stage wins? Will Van Aert be able to win another stage?

Despite being mostly flat, stage 13 of the Giro d’Italia proved to be quite entertaining. Ineos Grenadiers destroyed the peloton with more than 50km to go during a 4th category climb, managing to drop some of the main contenders like Juan Ayuso, Giulio Ciccone or Antonio Tiberi. They also isolated riders such as Del Toro or Roglic, creating a chaotic situation that could have been very damaging if successful.

After the peloton got back together, UAE fought hard for the Red Bull KM, with Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro winning the sprint of the group while seemingly competing against each other. The final uphill sprint showed Mads Pedersen proving once again that he is the most in shape rider at this Giro, beating Wout van Aert and Isaac del Toro in a monstrous sprint.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

Something that sticks to mind is the word 'alien', that is used so often on social media nowadays. Pedersen's victory has that written all over, because not only has he already won several stages at the start of the race, it feels like virtually every single day he goes to the very max - including days where he has done unnecessary work and burned energy he shouldn't have in my opinion - but somehow he remains fresh as a daisy after 13 stages.

It was an enjoyable day of racing with INEOS being the catalyst for another attempt for a GC raid, a tense finale and a final climb that always delivers spectacle. The winner is a rider that seemingly rides with no tactics or energy management, he wins because he is simply the strongest by a long shot.

Pedersen is doing what Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel can also do, but no other rider in the peloton can.

Beneath all of Pedersen’s exploits, my focus remains on Wout van Aert’s steady progression. It’s still remarkable. Day by day, he seems to be gaining those crucial extra two or three percent needed to close the gap to the best rider in the race for stages like these.

It may not be long before he reaches the level of the Mads Pedersen we saw at the Tour of Flanders — the one who held off Mathieu van der Poel for second place. That version of Pedersen is now in this Giro, and he’s winning everything that comes his way.

Naturally, the Dane arrived in peak condition, having maintained and sharpened his form in the lead-up to the race. Van Aert, by contrast, had to shake off a persistent virus before the start — and yet he’s already claimed a stage win. That makes his resurgence all the more impressive.

If he can reproduce the kind of raw power we saw in today’s sprint over the next stages, Van Aert may well turn the tables. Today, it was Pedersen first and Van Aert second. But give it another few days, and I expect that order to reverse.

Well, this stage was a bit more interesting than yesterday's in my opinion because of the small but steep dificulties that the peloton faced. This meant that there was not much time for relaxing and the peloton had to stay focused during that last part of the race.

There were some cracks beginning to appear in that 4th category climb (which I think is wrongly classified because 5km at 6.6% is already of considerable difficulty), but noone really picked up from that. It does smell like a preview for the mountain stages, in the sense that when we have the truly big difficulties there might be significant differences in the pack.

Meanwhile, the peloton clearly took the foot off the pedal and allowed Pedersen and Van Aert to return safely, and they turned out to be the main protagonists of the stage as such a type of finish would suggest.

Pedersen once again showing his dominance and proving that he is the most complete sprinter of this Giro, and Van Aert keeps showing his increase of form compared to those stages in Albania. It even looked like Van Aert was the fastest on the sprint but he timed it wrongly and Pedersen grabbed a much deserved 54th professional win.

At this point it starts to get hard to remember how many stages he won, because it seems like he's always there and has well spent all his bullets.

Mads Pedersen is earning his place as the star of this Giro d'Italia. Although it was not the plan to win, the Dane took full responsibility when Vacek was chased, and added his fourth stage victory in this Giro d'Italia, with the Maglia Ciclamino clinched.

Wout van Aert continues to excel, despite the criticism. He won a stage, helped Olav Kooij to take his and today he was half a wheel away from winning again, when he also lost energy on the climb 50 km from the finish where Egan Bernal and INEOS attacked. It is true that Pedersen is becoming his ‘bête noire’, but you have to be there for it.

In the fight for the overall, Isaac del Toro is gaining more and more confidence from UAE. Although Juan Ayuso was good, the Mexican is showing no weaknesses. Still, he has yet to wear the Maglia Rosa on a hard mountain stage. So whether he can really fight for the overall in the third and decisive week is a real question mark.

Pleasantly surprised with the stage, I was expecting a similar snoozefest to the one yesterday, with action just in the last kilometers, but the riders proved me wrong. The breakaway was big enough to dream with fighting for the stage, but even if they worked well together all the time it was not possible.

Lidl-Trek, Visma and Q36.5 were just too committed to supporting their leaders. In the case of Visma and Lidl-Trek, Van Aert and Pedersen lived up to the expectations, but the same cannot be said with Pidcock, and this is not the first time it happens this Giro. The British is struggling quite a lot so far and has not been able to show his best version.

He would have been one of the main favourites for today’s uphill finish not long ago, but he was just 18th and never in contention to fight for the win despite all the work from his teammates. It is also unclear what his true goals are. He is still in 15th place in the GC, so he doesn’t have the freedom to join the breaks to fight for the victory in mountain stages, but it looks highly unlikely that he will be protagonist staying in peloton.

I think he and the team in general need to reevaluate their strategy, and I think giving up the GC would be the best option. The third week is packed with mountains and a victory thanks to being in the break could be a realistic goal for him. A win at the Giro would be much more valuable than a top 15 or whatever he can achieve in the end.

Pedersen proved again that he is a beast, winning with authority an uphill sprint in which only Van Aert came close. It has been a perfect Giro for Lidl-Trek so far, already 5 wins, the Maglia Ciclamino in the bag and Ciccone looking strong in the mountains. Pedersen has four victories so far and I think he will get more. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ties the 6 stage wins Pogacar obtained last year…

Wout van Aert continues his impressive improvement, he looks like a totally different rider compared to just 10 days ago. He has been able to reverse a negative trend and his shape is tremendous now, fairly close to his best self. I think he has at least one more victory in his legs, and I expect him to play a very important role for Simon Yates next week.

Del Toro was super solid once again, he has not shown any signs of weakness yet and I think some rivals are starting to worry quite a lot. It is true the real mountain stages are still awaiting and we don’t really know how he will handle the third week of a Grand Tour, but today he secured 2 bonus seconds in the Red Bull KM (fighting against his own teammate Ayuso) and 7 additional seconds at the finish line.

He outsprinted riders such as Ayuso, Roglic or Ciccone, who have always been very explosive, so it is all positive for him so far, and UAE is one more day on top of the leaderboard with two riders. I am really looking forward to the mountains, the moment of truth will come next week.