Youth springs forth with stage win and race leadership change on stage 10

It was a good day for youth on day that seen another Italian winner, a change in the race lead, a conflict between team-mates, Tom Dumoulin losing time, and the abandonment of Mikel Landa after falling ill over night. The stage winner was 21 year old Giulio Ciccone, who became the third different Italian stage winner at this Giro and the race leader is now 23 year old Bob Jungles, who became the first rider from Luxembourg to pull on the pink jersey since the great Charly Gaul in 1959.

It's been a mighty impressive Giro for the Italians. On top of having Gianluca Brambilla in pink for a few days, they now have three stage wins from three different riders, and none of them have been sucked up via bunch sprints either. Indeed, if you remove the sprint stages and the two individual time-trials from the equation, Italians have now won three of the four remaining stages thus far.

And it was fitting that it should be this way for I had to stream the final 15-20km in Italian. I had no idea what they were saying other than the mention of riders names, but there was little doubt that they were enjoying what they were seeing. No let up in the shouting and yelling that gave the impression that I was watching the most dramatic race of all time.

Jungles will also be thanking the Italians as it was his Italian team-mate, Brambilla, in the pink jersey, who sacrificed so much for him to take the race lead. Brambilla had been dropped on the penultimate climb but regained contact with the reduced peloton on the descent before chasing hard for Jungles to reduce the gap to the attacking Andrey Amador, before blowing up and saying goodbye to the race lead.

Amador will be disappointed in some ways, though he remains a serious contender regardless. He looked to have sprung away from the favourites only for the remaining GC contenders to steam around the final corner, led by none other than Amador's gut-busting team-mate, Alejandro Valverde, as the Costa Rican's hit the line and gained just a single second. Whether it cost Amador a shot at pink is hard to say, he was still 26sec shy of overhauling Jungles after all, but it would still be interesting to be a fly on the wall of the Movistar team-bus after the race finished.

Beyond Valverde, names like Esteban Chaves, Jakob Fuglsang, Steven Kruijswijk, Rafal Majka, Ilnur Zakarin and, of course, Vincenzo Nibali were all present and accounted for. Tom Dumoulin lost time, as expected, and will now focus on individual stage glory while Ryder Hesjedal might now want to think of the same as he too lost contact on the penultimate climb. With regards to the overall, things remain tight. Jungles leads Amador by 26sec and Valverde and Kruijswijk by 50sec but Nibali is only two seconds further adrift.

And it's those later three names, separated by those short two seconds, that I feel will contend for the podium of this Giro in the long run; Nibali and Valverde look strong and Kruijswijk impresses me more by the day. Then again, last week I thought Landa would be on the podium, Dumoulin would be a top five contender along with Hesjedal, I had never heard of Giulio Ciccone and had no idea Bob Jungles had this kind of riding in him.

2016 Giro d'Italia, stage 10 result:

1. Giulio Ciccone (Bardiani CSF) 2. Ivan Rovny (Tinkoff) 3. Darwin Atapuma (BMC) 4. Nathan Brown (Cannondale) 5. Damiano Cunego (Nippo - Vini Fantini) 6. Andrey Amador (Movistar)

in 5h 44' 32" @ 42" @ 1' 20" @ 1' 53" @ 2' 04" @ 2' 10"

General classification after stage 10:

1. Bob Jungles (Etixx - Quick Step) 2. Andrey Amador (Movistar) 3. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) 4. Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) 5. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) 6. Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx - Quick Step)

in 40h 19' 52" @ 26" @ 50" s.t. @ 52" @ 1' 11"