An ambitious attempt by Giulio Pellizzari to shadow top Giro d'Italia favourite Jonas Vingegaard on the Blockhaus saw the Italian contender pay a high price as he was veered off the pace towards the end of the climb.
Pellizzari's Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe squad initially laid down an important pace at the foot of the climb, with Ben Zwiehoff's effort enough to sink some significant GC names like Enric Mas (Movistar) and Egan Bernal (Netcompany Ineos).
The Italian then tried to repay his teammates' effort by following Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) when the Dane attacked some 5.5 kilometres from the top.
The 2025 top-five Giro finisher impressed as he held on strongly for over a kilometre, resisting even when Vingegaard pushed harder on the pedals again, but he was unable to come through and collaborate.
However, 4.4 kilometres from the top, Pellizzari abruptly ran out of fuel, losing nearly 20 seconds to Vingegaard and proving unable to hold Felix Gall's back wheel when the Decathlon CMA CGM climber chased him down.
What saved him from struggling too badly was some timely assistance from teammate Jai Hindley, who bridged across with fellow Australian Ben O'Connor (Jayco-AlUla) and laid down a strong but not overly powerful pace at the front of the group of three chasers.
Fourth at 1:05 at the finish, Pellizzari is now fifth at 4:28. He had already shown he was in solid climbing form on stage 2 of the Giro after he and Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) managed to stay with Vingegaard after the Dane attacked on a short but steep late climb. This time round, though, he admitted to journalists, on the much harder Blockhaus, when it came to climbing duels with Vingegaard, Pellizzari reached his upper limit.
"I made some mistakes trying to follow him, pity because I was in good shape, but we'll see what we can do in the days to come," Pellizzari said in a brief interview with reporters on the line. "I followed him as best I could, but then he was really strong."
In terms of his overall time loss on Vingegaard, the 25-year-old pointed out that "a minute is not so bad, my aim here is the podium. We'll think about tomorrow," - which is a much punchier kind of stage, where Pellizzari may be able to at least challenge the Dane - "and then we'll see what we can do."
In the longer term, it remains to be seen whether the Italian will now opt to play things more conservatively or if he'll continue to try to match Vingegaard again. Furthermore, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate and former Giro d'Italia winner Hindley is clearly in rising form, and indeed is three seconds ahead on the overall classification.
While stage 9 to Corno alle Scale will doubtless have some effect on the GC standings, the next big decider in the Red Bull Giro hierarchy will almost certainly be in the stage 10 time trial in Tuscany. But for now, having both their pre-race GC options in the top five after a week's racing and the first major summit finish bodes very well for Red Bull in the days to come.
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