Pogacar briefly adds suspense, but can't match winning Ganna, while Thomas and Arensman outdo themselves

Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers) has won the second and final time trial of the Giro d'Italia. The Italian finished about half a minute faster than runner-up Tadej Pogacar, who initially turned his lap against the clock into a nailbiter. In the end, INEOS had plenty of reasons to celebrate, as both Geraint Thomas and Thymen Arensman also performed excellently.

On the penultimate day before the second rest day, the time trial bikes were dusted off for the second time in this Giro. A course of just over thirty kilometers was mapped out around Lake Garda. Although the time trial had considerably fewer elevation gains than the first one, it was by no means a completely flat course. Top favorite Ganna did not underestimate the competition beforehand.

Affini and Hoole ride strong time trials, but Ganna quickly proves superior

The first serious benchmark time was set by Czech time trialist Josef Cerny (Soudal-Quick Step), clocking in at 36.58 minutes. Several other strong time trialists, such as Daan Hoole, Edoardo Affini and Maximilian Walscheid, struggled to match Cerny's intermediate times. However, the roles were reversed at the finish. Hoole, Walscheid and Affini all had a better second part of the stage. Among them, Affini was the fastest with a time of 36.32 minutes.

Meanwhile, Ganna – a significant threat to Affini – had started. The former time trialing world champion and current Italian champion got off to a strong start. At the first checkpoint, about seven kilometers in, the INEOS Grenadiers rider was already 21 seconds faster than Affini. However, Affini had already been kicked out of the hot seat by Tobias Foss, who is also a former time trialing world champion and Ganna's teammate.

The Norwegian would not prove a formidable opponent for his teammate. Foss merely kept the hot seat warm for Ganna. The Italian crushed Foss's time and beat it by a whopping 1.26 minutes. The remaining starters were no doubt bracing themselves in an attempt to challenge his monstrous time (35.02).

Arensman makes great strides in the general classification

The main competition might have come from within Ganna's own team. American Magnus Sheffield is a strong time trialist and has been in excellent form in recent weeks. He started off well and was one of the few to come close to Ganna, trailing by just five seconds. However, at the finish, Foss lost his second place to Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla). The Australian finished 1.18 minutes behind Ganna. For Sheffield, the time trial ended in disappointment, as he crashed in a corner, which obviously cost him a lot of time (final time 36.37).

Attention then turned to the general classification riders, starting with specialist Thymen Arensman. Expectations for his performance were high, and rightly so. Arensman, who also races for INEOS Grenadiers, was very strong along the way, as was evident in his numbers at checkpoint one. This was also the case at the finish, where he posted an impressive second-best time (36.09), just over a minute behind Ganna. With that time, it was clear he would overtake many riders in the classification, including lesser time trialists like Einer Rubio, Lorenzo Fortunato and Romain Bardet.

Thomas, O'Connor, Tiberi and Pogacar deliver strong time trials, Martinez slightly less so: Ganna takes stage victory

Out of the other GC leaders, many performed excellently. For example, Ben O'Connor (36.27), Geraint Thomas (36.16) and Antonio Tiberi (36.21) – Arensman's main rival in the fight for the white jersey – had a fantastic day in the saddle. Daniel Felipe Martinez (BORA-hansgrohe), second in the GC, had a slightly worse day (36.47) and lost time, allowing Thomas to overtake him in the standings.

Ganna had been in the hot seat for a long time and seemed unlikely to leave it. Or would he? Pink jersey wearer Pogacar was faster than the Italian speed demon at the first checkpoint! The question was of course whether he could maintain that, although the signs were in his favor. This resulted in a nail-bitingly exciting finale, with Pogacar consistently one to two (sometimes three) seconds faster than Ganna. As the finish approached, the duel seemed to tilt in Ganna's favor. And so it proved at the finish, where the Slovenian ultimately conceded 29 seconds to his Italian opponent.

Results of stage 14 Giro d'Italia 2024