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Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) claimed a shocking victory on stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia in Lucca as a four-rider breakaway managed to carry off the peloton on what ought to have been a day for the sprinters.
Thomas out-paced Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost) and late attacker Andrea Pietrobon (Polti Kometa). Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ) introduced up the rear simply forward of the peloton, led to the road by factors classification chief Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).
The sprinters’ groups made a horrible miscalculation after working all day to manage the attackers. An early transfer of 4 got here again earlier than the midway level, and after the intermediate dash, the successful transfer went clear. Although they solely gained a most of 90 seconds, not one of the chasing groups would absolutely commit and ended up lacking out.
The hesitation benefitted Thomas, who got here away together with his first WorldTour and first Grand Tour stage victory.
How it unfolded
The Giro d’Italia ought to, in concept, have lastly settled in for the standard day of Grand Tour racing, however midway by means of the stage, no breakaway may go clear. The makes an attempt began from the flag drop, with Harrison Wood (Cofidis) attacking Mattia Bais (Polti-Kometa) and Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ).
Wood struggled to carry the tempo however was changed in entrance with Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), with the main trio chased by Simon Geschke (Cofidis) and Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani-CSF Faizanè). However, after only some kilometres, Costiou sat up. Geschke and Tarozzi made it to the 2 remaining leaders, however their trip entrance was restricted.
Soudal-Quickstep set a brisk tempo, halving the hole and, simply 30km into the stage, appeared to need to nullify the breakaway. Tarozzi attacked his companions on an unclassified climb, and after they caught him, they solely had 25 seconds left on the chasing peloton.
The hole went again out to a minute earlier than the one climb of the day, the class 3 Passo del Bracco, after which dropped once more on the climb.
The tempo noticed sprinters Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL), Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quickstep), Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) and Caleb Ewan (Jayco-AlUla) lose contact as Alpecin-Deceuninck set a brisk tempo.
The breakaway managed to remain away to dash to the highest of the Passo del Bracco, the place Geschke out-paced Tarozzi to take the factors simply 12 seconds forward of the bunch, then had been caught on the descent with 111.5km nonetheless to race.
It wasn’t too lengthy earlier than the dropped sprinters rejoined the peloton, maybe just a few litres much less within the tank after the chase, however the peloton stayed collectively by means of to the intermediate dash in Ceparana, the place Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) obtained the leap on Olav Kooij (Visma) with maglia ciclamino Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) third.
Attacks got here straightaway after the dash, with Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost), Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ) and Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-Kometa) rapidly gaining a spot of 1:30.
Pietrobon led the breakaway uncontested by means of the Intergiro dash with 58km to go because the hole hovered at 1:15, with Alpecin-Deceuninck doing a lot of the work.
The Alpecin riders surged to the road for the dash with Groves in tow, and the Australian snatched 4 of the remaining factors to Milan’s one.
Lidl-Trek took cost of the chase because the breakaway led over the ultimate climb at Montemagno, the place Valgren powered the lead group over the summit with almost a minute on the peloton.
When the quartet in entrance had 5km to go, they nonetheless had 40 seconds, and the peloton was shedding engine energy, with groups having to sacrifice their lead-out males to attempt to deliver them again.
Ineos lastly got here ahead with 3.5km to go and began to quickly scale back the breakaway’s benefit because the race reached the Lucca ring highway, if solely to maintain Geraint Thomas out of bother earlier than the 3km mark.
Pietrobon started to take a seat on, letting Thomas, Paleni and Valgren do the entire work. Inside 3km to go, Ineos pulled off and left the remainder of the pacemaking to the dash lead-outs nevertheless it was too little, too late.
Pietrobon made his transfer after the kilometre-to-go banner however went simply too quickly, and Thomas swept previous in sight of the road to grab the stage win over Valgren. Milan gained the dash for fifth.
Results
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