If some riders had the slightest hope to recover a bit this Thursday on the Giro, in stage 6 around Naples, they were certainly disappointed. A thrilling fight between the day’s breakaway and the sprinters’ teams led to a relentless race, which proved extremely intense in the last two hours of racing. After a detour through the foothills of Vesuvius and the Amalfi Coast, Mads Pedersen eventually won the sprint while Thibaut Pinot finished safely in the peloton. The blue jersey wearer still is seventeenth overall before the first proper summit finish in Gran Sasso on Friday.
Just like the fifth stage, the sixth one scheduled on Thursday featured nearly 2,500 meters of elevation gain. Still, it was also presented as an opportunity for the sprinters. Unlike yesterday, however, more riders wanted to enter the breakaway around Naples due to the fatigue in the bunch and a twisty, more favourable route. Stefan Küng even tried to take the lead in the first kilometres, but the right move eventually went with five men a little further on. Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla), Francesco Gavazzi (EOLO-Kometa), Alexandre Delettre (Cofidis), Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Charlie Quarterman (Corratec) hit the front, and shortly after rounding Vesuvius, began the first climb of the day. At the top, the bunch was three minutes behind, and from then on, there wasn’t any resting time. “We knew that the stage was going to be extremely technical, and it was so”, said Sébastien Joly. “It was really fast on the seaside. The breakaway really put on a great ride, and it was a bit crazy in the bunch. We had to deal with a route going up and down, along the coast, and we were also very often in an urban area, with cobbled slabs, narrowings, and a lot of technical dangers. The peloton was stretched out the whole time. It still was a hard day out.”
“There are still some more opportunities”, Jake Stewart
In the second climb of the day, with about seventy kilometres to go, Simon Clarke and Alessandro De Marchi got rid of their companions to hope for the stage victory. A long-distance battle took place between the duo and the sprinters’ teams, which finally turned to the advantage of the fast men… just 500 metres from the finish. Mads Pedersen then won the bunch sprint, while Lars van den Berg (13th) and Jake Stewart (14th) finished just outside the top-10. “The sensations were very good today,” said the Briton. “The plan was obviously to pass the climbs with the peloton and then go for a sprint. In the last thirty kilometres, the fight was still very intense because the breakaway still had two minutes. I just had to sit tight in the peloton and wait for the sprint. In the finish, I took the wheel of Kaden Groves, I stayed there, but with 400 metres to go, I kind of got swamped from the right when Gaviria launched the sprint. I couldn’t find a way out. When I finally found a way out, it was too late to enter the top-10. That said, we can take confidence going forward. The legs are good, I’m climbing well, there are still some more opportunities on this Giro and we will try to take our chance again”.
Thibaut Pinot finished in the same peloton, like Stefan Küng and Bruno Armirail, and once again put on the best climber’s blue jersey at the finish. “I did not expect such a hard day and we are happy to have it behind,” he said. “It was a sprint at the end, but it was the most intense stage since the start of this Giro”. Still seventeenth in the overall, 2’33 behind the pink jersey Andreas Leknessund, the Groupama-FDJ leader is now focused on the summit finish in Gran Sasso d’Italia, where he took second back in 2018. “It’s a hard summit finish, even if it’s not the hardest of the Giro”, he analysed. “It is made of two parts, and you must not be left behind in the first part. If a leader is dropped at that moment, it is almost over for the general classification, because then there is a long sequence of climbs/descents and a windy plateau. The last three kilometres are also quite steep. It’s a special climb, not the type we often do”.
