Romain Bardet ends second week on a high note, moving closer to final top 5: "I said yesterday that a new Giro started for us today"

It was until famous Mortirolo, Romain Bardet finally had one of those better days he was so keenly awaiting at this Giro d'Italia. The French climber took off from the group of favourites under the top of the Italian mountain pass at an ideal moment and the group with Geraint Thomas never caught the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL leader again.

With a fourth place on the day, Bardet gains few seconds on his opponents in general classification, most importantly on fifth Antonio Tiberi, sixth Thymen Arensman and his today's performance also sees the Frenchman jump number seven - Filippo Zana.

With six stages left to conquer, Romain Bardet thus sits in a nice seventh spot overall, just over ten minutes behind pink jersey Tadej Pogacar. However what will be more interesting for Bardet is the fight for top 5, where he's only 1:23 shy of Tiberi - a gap that Bardet can recover in the final week if he continues to race the way he rounded up second week.

"I’m really happy with that ride today," he said in a statement published by his team. "I said yesterday that a new Giro started for us today. The guys rode really well to support me throughout the day, I always had someone with me and they were there until the final main climb. I’m happy to be up there and feeling good, so we will keep fighting and trying in the final week."

Sports director Matt Winston agreed with those words. "It was a beautiful day for us," he said in the same press release. "The boys did a great job and kept Romain safe. Once we reached the 2000 meter mark, Romain was in his element and struck. He managed to cross the line in fourth, which is a great achievement. He's also gained some time on the guys around him in the overall ranking, so that's nice. We can be proud of that."