Yates still in control after adding three seconds to race lead

SIMON Yates extended his overall lead as Matej Mohoric won stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia from Penne to Gualdo Tadino.

Bury rider Yates picked up three more seconds on defending champion Tom Dumoulin by taking bonuses from the intermediate sprint, but saw Mitchelton-Scott team-mate Esteban Chaves lose second place overall and drop out of the top 10 in a blow for his team.

Yates now leads by 41 seconds from Dutchman Dumoulin, with Thibaut Pinot of Groupama-FDJ in third at 46 seconds.

What was expected to be a quiet transition stage – over the longest distance of the entire Giro at 244km – turned into a frantic day of racing after Chaves was dropped on the category two climb which opened the day’s racing.

With Quick-Step Floor’s star sprinter Elia Viviani in the points leaders’ cyclamen jersey with Chaves, the race split into two as general classification and sprint teams in the peloton worked together to distance them.

With 90km left the second group gave up the chase and attention turned to the front, where Yates nipped ahead of Pinot to take the three bonus seconds from the intermediate sprint.

Today’s Stage 11 is another lumpy one, covering 156km from Assisi to Osimo.

Adam Yates, the twin brother of Simon, finished in third place after the second stage of the Amgen Tour of California yesterday.