Of all of the GC contenders within the Giro d’Italia this yr, Cian Uijtdebroeks’ race throughout the gravel of Tuscany on stage 6 was some of the eventful. The 21-year-old Belgian needed to deal with each a puncture after which a cease to his ahead progress when he put his foot on the bottom as a result of a crash in entrance of him on one of many gravel segments.
The second incident was by far the extra severe when teammate Atilla Valter went down, fortunately with out main penalties, however the Visma-Lease a Bike rider, fourth total, later earned fulsome reward from his group for not panicking in both circumstance.
Uijtdebroeks crossed the end line on stage 6 safely in the primary pack of favourites, together with his fourth place total and lead in one of the best younger rider’s jersey nonetheless intact.
“It was fairly explosive on the finish with [Romain] Bardet [Team dsm-firmenich PostNL] additionally attacking however I felt fairly good and Attila Valter introduced me there in an ideal place, so it was OK,” Uijtdebroeks instructed Cyclingnews.
“Gravel levels are at all times difficult in a Grand Tour, significantly when you don’t have expertise in these to date, as a result of it’s my second GT. So I’m joyful I managed to get by it with out time loss.”
The group sports activities director Marc Reef instructed Het Laatste Nieuws that his rider “by no means panicked”.
“That exhibits that he’s actually good. He additionally got here again completely,” Reef mentioned. He was not stunned by the shortage of total race motion, declaring that with so few gravel sections – simply 11.6 kilometres in comparison with 35.2 in stage 11 of the 2021 Giro – “it wasn’t troublesome sufficient”.
“The foremost assessments of energy shall be tomorrow [in the time trial] and the day after tomorrow [on Prati di Tivo.”
While under no circumstances a poor rider in opposition to the clock, Uitjdebroeks himself has thus far had a reasonably unremarkable sequence of ends in time trials, putting thirty fifth in final yr’s TT within the Vuelta a España, and together with his greatest efficiency a sixth place behind teammate Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike) in final yr’s Belgian Nationals.
As the younger Belgian reminded reporters on Thursday, although, at his level in his profession, time trialling stays a piece in progress, very similar to all of this Giro given his appreciable inexperience in Grand Tours. That mentioned, thus far Uijtdebroeks has proved greater than able to going past expectations and his efficiency on Friday’s 40.6-kilometre TT shall be watched intently.
“Friday shall be a superb check,” the Belgian concluded. “But it’s nonetheless a undertaking we’re engaged on. Let’s see if we’ve made a step in comparison with the previous.”
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