Giro d'Italia 2024 stage 13 highlights - Echelons put Tadej Pogacar under pressure and Jonathan Milan's powerful sprint victory

Stage 13 of the Giro d'Italia was an interesting day of racing. Few people expected much action outside of the bunch sprint; but this was not the case in the 179-kilometer long transition stage through Emilia-Romagna.

This was a day that provided quite a lot of action still early on. Only three riders joined the breakaway: Italian trio of Andrea Pietrobon of Polti Kometa and VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizanè duo of Manuele Tarozzi and Alessandro Tonelli. All three have experienced breakaway success this year; so despite their relatively harmless attack, the peloton knew it had to act.

Soudal - Quick-Step and Lidl-Trek took responsibility over the peloton whilst the GC riders and their teams recovered. This was not the case for the whole stage however, as with over 60 kilometers to go INEOS Grenadiers hit the front and with the pull of big engines such as Filippo Ganna and Magnus Sheffield; did quite some damage. A few riders were caught out, including Jonathan Milan who admitted he was on a nature break as the attack began.

A few groups stood apart with this attack, Geraint Thomas and INEOS tried to put the pressure on Tadej Pogacar and Daniel Martínez... But the podium contenders were alive to the occasion and managed to keep it under control. UAE Team Emirates helped in the attack but ultimately with just under 40 kilometers to go it all came back together. Martin Marcellusi and Dried de Pooter tried to take advantage of this special race scenario but the peloton at this point began to race fast in preparation for the final sprint and ultimately they were not successful.

Lidl-Trek perfectly rode through the urban finale in Cento and had numerical superiority into the final sprint. In good position, there were low chances that Jonathan Milan could be beaten. Fernando Gaviria did a traditional early sprint which almost surprised; but he didn't have the legs to keep it all the way to the finish. Milan took his third win of the race to extend his lead in the points classification whilst Stanislaw Aniolkowski sprinted to a brilliant sprint to second place; whilst Phil Bauhaus was third for the second time this race.e

You can watch the stage's highlights in the video below, shared by Giro d'Italia: