Unstoppable Tadej Pogacar makes it a fantastic five Giro d'Italia stage wins with victory on reduced stage 16

Tadej Pogacar has made it five stage wins at the 2024 Giro d'Italia. On a reduced stage affected by the weather, the Maglia Rosa increased his lead even further in the GC as Daniel Martinez made time on Geraint Thomas behind.

After a controversial, confusing and ultimately rather shambolic opening to the stage with riders unsure when, where or even if they would be getting underway, stage 16 eventually was green-lit to begin without the Umbrailpass, due to the bad weather. Reduced to around 120km, the new parcour was mostly flat before the climb towards the line.

As riders fought for a place in the day's breakaway, the pace was incredibly high early on. Eventually though, the elastic snapped and a four-man group of Julian Alaphilippe, Mirco Maestri, Andrea Piccolo and Davide Ballerini got themselves clear. Curiously though, doing the majority of the work on the front of the bunch to control the time gap were Movistar Team.

Once the over 30km climb towards the finish line began, stage 12 winner Alaphilippe quickly proved himself the strongest climber of the break and began to pedal climb in the fog. With the peloton, still led by Movistar Team just over a minute behind however, it looked unlikely the Frenchman would be able to hold that advantage for another 30km.

With Alaphilippe continuing to dance his way up the climb though, over the next 10km the Frenchman actually managed to extend his advantage over the peloton to 1:34, despite Movistar Team's pace at the front of the bunch, seeing a number of riders drop out the back of the group. With the likes of Pelayo Sanchez and Nairo Quintana doing work for Einer Rubio however, that time gap was quickly dropping.

Romain Bardet was a notable casualty of the Movistar pace setting but when Sanchez suffered an ill-timed mechanical, Rubio was left all alone with 14km to go. Not ready to attack just yet, the Colombian dropped back and allowed UAE Team Emirates to control as a counter-attack of Christian Scaroni, Giulio Pellizzari and Ewen Costiou rode into the gap between Alaphilippe and peloton.

Heading into the final 5km, Alaphilippe had been caught by the counter-attacking trio. Sadly for those up ahead however, the signs were ominous behind as with just under 5km to go, Rafal Majka took to the front of the GC group with the Maglia Rosa Tadej Pogacar right on his wheel and seemingly prepared to attack at any moment.

At 2.5km to go, Alaphilippe was dropped by his companions and the trio of Pellizzari, Scaroni and Costiou entered the final 2km with 30 seconds over the Maglia Rosa group. The first to attack was Arkéa - B&B Hotels' Costiou, with only Pellizzari being able to match him. Then, with 1.5km to go, VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizanè's talent attacked, dropping Costiou and moving clear solo. 

Down the road though, Majka was pulling over with Pogacar attacking and quickly riding away from his rivals and catching Scaroni and Costiou. Despite Pellizzari fighting hard at the front, the inevitable happened with 700m to go as he was caught by the race leader and immediately dropped. In the GC fight meanwhile, Geraint Thomas was in trouble, losing time to Daniel Martinez. In the end, Pellizzari held off Martinez for second but victory was Pogacar's.