"We came up short but that's cycling" - Mark Cavendish shows good form but disappointed as breakaway succeeds on stage 10 of the Giro

Mark Cavendish has been having quite a tough season with Astana Qazaqstan Team, but on stage 10 of the Giro d'Italia the Manxman showed surprisingly good legs, making it to the finish with a reduced peloton fighting for first places.

"Congratulations to Magnus Cort. When you go the whole day in a break like the three did, you can be happy that they get their reward for their hard work," Cavendish told Cyclingnews after the stage. "We're disappointed but also I'm super proud of how the team worked. We can try again in the next sprint. It was a stage of attrition more than anything. The nature of the stage profile meant we were on the pedals all day and that was amplified by the weather conditions."

Whilst many suffered brutally in the rain and cold conditions, Cavendish seemed to fare quite well. A group of just over 40 riders made it to the finish in the peloton, Cavendish being one of them alongside a few Astana riders. Most sprinters went off the back in the several climbs the day presented, or the technical wet descents. Cavendish was also dropped, but a team effort saw him enter the peloton after the tough terrain was over.

"We knew the descent would be as important as the climb but every team knew that as well, so they went full gas at the top of the long climb to have a good position for the descent. That's not great for a sprinter and so I was chaperoned incredibly well by Joe Dombrowski and Samuele Battistella to the top," he continued. "They set my pace and got me to just off the back of the peloton and got me over the climb. Their talking gave me the motivation to get me over the top. We hit the descent and the group split but I had Gianni Moscon, Simone Velasco and Christian Scaroni looking after me to the end."

Afterwards the Kazakh team put in a lot of effort to try and shut down the breakaway, but with no success. It was nevertheless a motivating effort for both team and rider, who still have chances of taking a win through this Giro.

"The break was strong and so we had to commit to chasing it. Scaroni and Gianni pulled so strongly but unfortunately, it wasn't enough without the other sprint teams wanting to catch the break back. We came up short but that's cycling," he concluded. He then sprinted to eighth on the day, crossing the line in better condition then when he did in the last sprint.