Einer Rubio takes brilliant win to break Thibaut Pinot's heart on shortened stage 13 of the Giro d'Italia

Einer Rubio claimed a brilliant win on stage 13 of the Giro d'Italia, breaking the heart of Thibaut Pinot in his final Giro d'Italia.

Finally after a day of chaos, confusion and delays, stage 13 of the 2023 Giro d'Italia got underway at 15:00CET and the attacking began immediately at the front of the race as the sprinters started a grupetto almost from the get go.

As the climbing began instantly, an early group rode clear that included some notable riders such as Thibaut Pinot, Jay Vine and an EF Education-EasyPost trio of Ben Healy, Jefferson Alexander Cepeda and Hugh Carthy.

INEOS were not content with that group though and Laurens de Plus shredded the peloton as he led the chase.

The next group to try their luck included a number of riders from the first attempt with Pinot, Cepeda and Valentin Paret-Peintre all involved.

As the rain began to fall the leading group held an advantage of 47 seconds over the peloton with half of the first climb still to go.

Unhappy with the pace INEOS were setting, Bahrain - Victorious moved to the front with Santiago Buitrago, perhaps showing Damiano Caruso was on a good day.

With Thibaut Pinot continuing his King of the Mountains quest, taking maximum points on the climb, the leaders advantage had stretched towards nearly three minutes.

As the descending stopped a lead group of five riders had 4:00 on the peloton with Pinot now firmly back in GC contention.

On the flat, Thibaut Pinot was getting visibly frustrated with his breakaway companions' lack of cooperation. After he had a stern word however, things seemed to improve somewhat.

Reaching the final climb with a lead of 2:56 over the peloton, it seemed as if the chances for a stage win looked good for the breakaway.

With 12km to go, Pinot made a move with only Cepeda able to follow. As Einer Rubio rejoined them, Pinot kicked again but he seemingly unable to shake them off his wheel.

As they then began to argue amongst themselves, they were soon back up to four with Derek Gee back in contact.

Back down the road the GC battle was still quiet with the INEOS Grenadiers comfortable at the front of the peloton. On an emotional day for EOLO-Kometa, Lorenzo Fortunato then became the first rider to attack the Maglia Rosa group.

Pinot continued to make attack after attack without ever being able to really snap the elastic to Cepeda and Rubio.

Hugh Carthy was the next GC rider to attack and almost simultaneously his teammate Cepeda made a move at the front of the race.

Although Carthy was quickly able to join Fortunato some 20 seconds ahead of the bunch, Cepeda found similar problems to what Pinot had earlier on, unable to break the leading trio apart.

After catching his breath and riding alongside Fortunato for a moment, Carthy kicked again riding clear of the Italian.

Caruso was the net to go from the GC bunch. More threatening to Geraint Thomas than Carthy, Thymen Arensman made an instant move to reel him in.

In the final sprint, it was Einer Rubio who had been hanging on all the way up the final climb that outsprinted Pinot and Cepeda to take the stage win.

In the GC battle, Carthy was able to claim a few seconds but there was no race-changing time gaps.

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