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Sunday’s second stage of the 106th Giro d’Italia was the first sprint day, and the man who proved the fastest in the bunch was Italian Jonathan Milan of Bahrain-Victorious, in his first Grand Tour road stage. He took over the purple points jersey with the triumph. Pink jersey Remco Evenepoel didn’t have to withstand any threats to his race lead, although a crash with 3.8 km to go meant that some GC riders lost a chunk of time.
The Course
Two hundred and two kilometers separated Teramo from San Salvo in the Abruzzo region of Italy. Two Cat. 4 climbs were placed in the middle of the route to entice a breakaway.
#Giro 🇮🇹
The first road stage is underway 🏳️ 202km from Teramo to ➡️ San Salvo
There’s a couple of small climbs to deal with but it *should* be one for the quick men in the bunch today 👀 pic.twitter.com/9P3aPil2xm
— Team Jayco AlUla (@GreenEDGEteam) May 7, 2023
Sure enough a quintet of breakaways shook loose with a mind to take the KOM jersey from Brandon McNulty. Atop Silvi Paese AG2R-Citroën’s Paul Lapeira took maximum points. Could he do the same on Ripa Teatina? The answer was yes.
Sated, Lapeira dropped away from the doomed escape. The sprinters’ teams didn’t want to make the catch too early, so as not to elicit another one.
The day’s favorites were Kaden Groves, Fernando Gaviria, Mads Pedersen, Pascal Ackermann, Alberto Dianese, Michael Matthews and maybe, just maybe, Mark Cavendish, a man with 16 career Giro stage wins but so far no 2023 victories.
Somewhere in the middle of that peloton, Mark Cavendish is looking wistfully at that pink locomotive and reminding himself what a train looks like… #Giro2023 pic.twitter.com/KjOl9VVf3P
— Felix Lowe (@saddleblaze) May 7, 2023
With 34 km to go, the last of the escapees were apprehended; they shook hands before absorption. The peloton loped along towards San Salvo, not yet at a full gallop. Once they started winding it up, there wasn’t room at the front for both the sprint trains and the GC riders’ safety formations.
There was a crash on the right hand side with 3.8 km to go that not only took down a dozen riders, but delayed dozens more. Only 50 riders would contest the sprint. Fourth place Tao Geoghegan Hart, Jack Haig and Jay Vine were among those GC riders who lost time.
Alpecin-Deceuninck led under the red kite. It was a hectic sprint, with Milan coming right down the middle, moving around Groves and then celebrating heartily at the line. …
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Canadian Cycling Magazine…
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