Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) completed a hat-trick of stage wins at the Giro d’Italia on stage 11, outsprinting Enric Mas (Movistar) at the finish in Chiavari to claim his third win of this race.
Diego Ulissi (XDS Astana) sprinted to third from a three-man chase group behind.
Narváez and Mas were the strongest survivors of the day’s break, having both bridged across to the original 12-man move, which splintered and reduced over the final two categorised climbs on the route, and the climb to the Red Bull Kilometre.
It was on this final uncategorised rise that the pair finally shook off the remainders of the break, going solo to contest the win. Despite Mas’ efforts on the climbs, he could never shake Narváez, and at the finish, the Ecuadorian easily outpowered his breakaway companion to win.
After plenty of GC action on stages 9 and 10, the favourites finally had a more relaxed day on Wednesday, taking the coastal hills steadily and safely, with Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) rolling across the finish with the bunch to hold onto pink for another day.
“All day [was difficult],” Narváez said at the finish. “We started committing with the boys saying we have to jump in the breakaway, because that was our goal, but then we missed the first group, then we missed the second group. And then after two hours of hard racing I tried to jump straight to the breakaway, and that was difficult.
“I was scared,” Narváez said about the moment Mas launched his sprint. “Because he did the sprint and he nearly tried to close me into the barriers, I was on the…
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