Race analysis from the Giro d'Italia

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This Giro d'Italia has been pure theatre and the story, so far, can be told in three parts.

Part One: The visit to Ireland

Part Two: The return to the Italy

Part Three: who still has nine lives?

And victory number two for Nacer Bouhanni on stage 7. What I'd consider the first normal stage of this year's race as the result was unaffected by the weather, crashes or unforeseen circumstances. Orica-GreenEdge did their race leader duties, controlling the gap to the early break until the sprinters’ teams took over and ensured a bunch sprint. Despite having to surf the wheels when he lost his lead-out men the FDJ sprinter came round Mezgec and Nizzolo with an impressive acceleration.

Although Evans rode defensively, with the Australian taking over the pink jersey, he will be placed under more scrutiny from now on. Of the old guys Basso was surprisingly solid and hiding in the background was one Ryder Hesjedal, who was looking a lot happier than he was in Belfast.

On stage 9 we saw, for the first time, one of the escapees succeeded in getting to the end without being caught and Orica-GreenEdge's Peter Weening compensated for the team losing the race lead by winning the two-man sprint from Europcar's Davide Malacarne.