‘I improvised’ – Giro d’Italia stage winner Olav Kooij uses instinct to claim breakthrough first Grand Tour victory

To describe Olav Kooij’s Giro d’Italia bunch sprint victory at Naples as ‘hard fought’ would surely be something of an understatement, with the Visma-Lease A Bike fastman taking a narrow but convincing triumph ahead of Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) on a day anything but certain to be resolved by a mass dash for the line.

Being bereft of a leadout man following Christophe Laporte’s abandon earlier this week was just one of the challenges facing Kooij on stage 9, as a series of late attacks by punchy riders of the calibre of Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jonathan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) on a late chain of hills tested the sprint teams capacity to control affairs to the limit.