Visma-Lease a Bike were vindicated in their decision to ride at the very back of the peloton for much of the final 30km on stage 1 of the Giro d’Italia, avoiding the late mass crash entirely and ensuring heavy GC favourite Jonas Vingegaard arrived at the finish safely.
For much of the 147km stage from Nessebar to Burgas along the Black Sea coastline in Bulgaria, their yellow and black jerseys were present just behind those of the teams eyeing up the sprint, as you’d expect of defending champions, but as racing entered its final 25km, they had all disappeared.
This didn’t happen until the final kilometre, though, and with the 5km rule in play – where any accident or incident within that zone would result in riders getting the same time as the winner – Visma-Lease a Bike took the more risk-averse option.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…