The final day in the mountains at the Giro saw the bunch faced with a tough day in the saddle, tacking the Passo San Pellegrino and Passo Pordoi climbs, with the day ending on the steep ascent of Passo Fedaia. With lots of teams hunting for their first stage win of the race, it was a fast and frenetic start to proceedings. The team rode well together as a group, trying to infiltrate moves with Thymen Arensman eventually finding himself out front after marking the attacks.

Their gap grew quickly to five minutes over the peloton who then started to set tempo and begin the chase, throwing the potential stage win up in the balance. The gap stayed stable over the San Pellegrino and onto the Pordoi, where eventual stage winner Covi made his attack. Things were tactical in Arensman’s group as other riders had different motives, not pulling due to either Covi being out front or playing the card of waiting for their GC rider behind.

On the final climb, some of those that had sat on attacked or waited for their GC rider, while Arensman rode at his own tempo all the way to the line – taking a solid fifth place atop Fedaia.

Arensman said: “At the beginning of the stage I was marking the breakaways and tried to get one of the other guys into the move. Things split though and I found myself in the break. We tried to save as much energy as possible before we knew for sure that the break would have a really good chance of making it all the way to the line. Things also became pretty tactical in the group with the other teams. I then gave it a go in the finale but it just wasn’t to be in the end.”

Team DSM coach Matt Winston added: “We were hoping to make the break today with Chris and Martijn, and the guys did a good job at the start of the stage to follow moves and try and set things up. Eventually a group went clear that Thymen had followed and that would be the break of the day. We tried to be tactical in the group and save energy for when it was clear the break could take the stage, but the peloton kept them relatively close. Covi attacked out of the group at a good moment and a lot of eyes were on us to do the work with Thymen but we didn’t want to tow anyone back freely. In the end, Thymen gave it a go but it just wasn’t to be for us in terms of the stage result.”