00:00...man and he knew he was in good form, but this is better than even Maz Pedersen would have imagined going into this race.
00:11I'm pretty sure of that. He wouldn't have imagined he'd be in the lead still with three stage victories and a very good chance, as we'll see in a minute, of another stage victory tomorrow into Napoli.
00:22Yeah, he has a stellar beginning of the Giro d'Italia and, as you said, tomorrow is another day they can search him quite well.
00:33Better than today.
00:34Better than today, exactly. If there is possibly some limit to what he is able to do, I think we have to wait stage eight to see Maz Pedersen off the back.
00:52Here we are. Some champagne time for him. I think today seems like even more pleased than the other victories. I think this one cost him a lot of sweat and power in order to keep in touch with the peloton.
01:07Just a small detail today as well. He won both the intermediate... Well, he didn't win the intermediate sprints, but he beat everybody else at the intermediate sprints.
01:16And on the second of those sprints, he had to actually... He had to work really hard for it as well, up against Jenson Plowright.
01:23Yeah, he's actually demolishing all the hopes of each rider because, like, while all the sprints were getting dropped, he was still in contention and finally and ultimately having another victory.
01:42Good to see Damiano Caruso, probably in his last year of racing, up in the top ten at the Giro d'Italia.
01:52And really good to see Tom Pidcock getting involved, getting into the thick of a bike race, actually, today for the first time.
01:58Reminding us of his talent with a third place at the Giro d'Italia, his first ever podium finish.
02:03But Maz Pedersen continues in pink and shores up his advantage. A fourth day in pink for Maz Pedersen.
02:11And don't forget how close he came to defending that pink jersey in the individual time trial.
02:16Just one second between him and Primoz Roglic on GC at the end of that day.
02:20Had that gone the other way, he would have worn pink the whole way so far.
02:26Yeah, he's bossing all the ceremony awards, he's gonna come back even after the Magia Rosa for yet another jersey.
02:35Yep.
02:38Picks up another Wolfie, which will probably get lined up on the dashboard of the team car in Grand Tour, the team bus, I should say, in Grand Tour tradition.
02:48And another bottle of the fizzy stuff gets uncorked.
02:55And the photographers get another soaking from Maz Pedersen.
03:00And yet another flower to the public, Ole.
03:05So Denmark, I think, now go above Hungary in the national list of jersey wearers, if that makes sense, at the Giro d'Italia.
03:14And Maz Pedersen has done it all single-handedly within a week.
03:18And with today's victory also, we are receiving here in our commentary booth some confetti, pink confetti from the ceremony.
03:33Is it blown in?
03:34Is it blown in?
03:35Yeah.
03:36Yes, right next to us.
03:37I didn't realise that.
03:44This is the GC that looks a lot like it did this morning, except for the fact that Maz Pedersen has added 10 seconds on everybody.
03:51So Primoz Roglic now back down to 17 seconds.
03:56Well, Maz Pedersen is not expecting to and won't win the Giro d'Italia.
04:08He won't be wearing pink in Rome unless something truly ridiculous happens.
04:12But he almost certainly, if he carries on like this, will be wearing the Malia Ciclamino.
04:17Because as you say, Jacopo, sometimes it's a game of attrition, the Malia Ciclamino.
04:23And one by one, riders drop out of contention.
04:26And you have fewer and fewer opponents each time, each stage that passes.
04:30At the beginning, think how many other riders were competing at these intermediate sprints.
04:35And today it was only really Olaf Koi and Albson de Koenig.
04:38After today, I don't know really.
04:40Yeah.
04:41Will anybody bother?
04:42I don't know.
04:43And also what is more notable of Maz Pedersen was if you look at the podium finishes where he won the stages,
04:50there were always different riders.
04:52So that means like he was the only consistent one over this field.
04:56And this jersey, even more, it's going to be a very tough job for everybody to take it away from him.
05:04Well, I thought last year that Jonathan Milan's Malia Ciclamino was pretty emphatic and unanswerable,
05:13but nothing compared to the way that Maz Pedersen has set about this Giro d'Italia.
05:20And that is a decent throw there.
05:21He's got, what, 20 meters to lob that bouquet across.
05:25Not tired enough, probably, after today's stage.
05:27Look at that.
05:28139 points.
05:31The next best is 52.
05:33Kasper van Uden's moved up to 50.
05:36Well, he was on 50.
05:37In fact, there's no change there, is there?
05:39Koenig didn't pick up any points today and Nordic Kasper van Uden.
05:42Yeah, Oli Zambanini appeared in the classmate today.
05:46For the first time.
05:49As we switch our attention to the last two jerseys and Lorenzo Fortunato.
05:52Well, he might have to do a little bit of riding tomorrow.
05:55We'll see how it plays out.
05:56But there are, I think, nine points available tomorrow.
05:59Weren't enough on the road today to threaten him.
06:02So his lead will be unchanged.
06:05But tomorrow there is a, there are two categorized climbs.
06:09One of them is a cat three climb, which has nine points in total.
06:13And the other one is a, is on the fold in the paper.
06:18So I can't quite see, but I think it's a cat four climb.
06:22Tomorrow's stage is something like a...
06:26No, it's a cat two climb.
06:27There's more points than that, I thought.
06:28Yeah, it's a very long one.
06:30So we're curious to see the approach of the peloton.
06:32Because so far, it seems like Pedersen is unbeatable.
06:36So I wonder if, which teams are willing to make life harder to him and a little track team.
06:42Well, Lorenzo Fortunato might have to think about getting in a break tomorrow.
06:56Because if he's serious about winning the King of the Mountains competition,
06:59tomorrow's the kind of day where he actually has to maybe try and rack up points
07:03before we get to the really big mountains where you tend,
07:06it tends to tilt back in favor of the big GC contenders.
07:09Indeed, especially since tomorrow starts line, very first kilometer,
07:14I think like roughly five kilometers is going to be uphill.
07:16This is going to go in favor of a much more climbing body physique like Lorenzo Fortunato,
07:23which we now see the general standing for the KOM jersey.
07:29If a rider tomorrow like Tonnelli or Bilbao gets in a move,
07:34they could take the jersey off Fortunato unless he's in the move as well.
07:37So that will be, after a couple of quiet days,
07:40I think that will be an interesting competition potentially tomorrow.
07:47One more jersey to go and Matias Vacek.
07:49I mean, it's the same performance every single day from Matias Vacek.
07:52He's rock solid.
07:54Yeah.
07:55It's probably the best word to define him.
08:00It's always there, always attentive.
08:03Even today when we saw UAE speed things up,
08:07he was the first one to respond.
08:08He was the first one in the descent, closing the gap on them.
08:11And on the climb, we basically set up the tempo for Mats Pedersen,
08:15then waiting him on the top and then leading him out again
08:18as the third consecutive lead out from Matias Vacek.
08:21So a very solid rider.
08:23It doesn't matter what phase of the race you are.
08:25Matias Vacek is sitting in the top ten in the punch all the time.
08:28He never moves, does he?
08:29You never see him at the back.
08:30You never see him anywhere other than very, very close to the front of the race.
08:33Exactly.
08:39Hugely impressive opening week of racing from Matias Vacek,
08:42who loves a big swig, and they appreciate that there.
08:45Yeah.
08:47Seems like he's at the local pub.
08:49So that's it for the ceremony of today's stage.
09:04All the jersey has been handed to the respective owners as well as the today's winner.
09:10A couple of riders potentially who we might still hear from before we'll have a look at tomorrow's very long stage.
09:20Much longer than today's stage.
09:22As we look at the white jersey standings there in which nothing has really changed apart from the two riders who popped into the top ten there.
09:33Ciotta and Zambellini who makes it up into the top ten, courtesy of his time bonus that he picked up today.
09:46Right, Lorenzo Fortunato could have a bit of a job to do tomorrow.
09:50Didn't really have anything to ride for today, but tomorrow might change anything.
09:54I wonder if we'll get his thoughts about the King of the Mountains competition
09:58and how he might set about either augmenting or...
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