Giro d'Italia: Battaglin wins stage 5 in Santa Ninfa

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Enrico Battaglin (LottoNL-Jumbo) turned Tuesday's third place in Caltagirone into victory in Santa Ninfa on Wednesday, winning stage 5 of the Giro d'Italia with strong sprint to the line after a steep climb to the final kilometre forced the overall contenders to dig deep yet again.

The Italian was unable to match Tim Wellens on Tuesday, but he had far more power and speed than Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida) on the flat finish after teammate Domenico Pozzovivo tried to split the select peloton on the steep climb. Jose Goncalves (Katusha-Alpecin) was third, Max Schachmann (Quick-Step Floors) was fourth despite a late crash, and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) was fifth.

Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) finished 15th in the reduced front group of 42 riders and so retained the leader’s maglia rosa. defending champion Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) is second at one second back, with Yates third overall at 17 seconds.

Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) was the big loser of the day. He crashed with five kilometres to go and lost 43 seconds, slipping to 39th overall at a distant 1:57.

Chris Froome (Team Sky) appeared to struggle to hold the wheels on the short, steep climb up to Santa Ninfa, but he finished 33rd in the same time as Battaglin. He is 19th overall at 55 seconds as the Giro d’Italia prepares to climb Mount Etna on Thursday.

Battaglin’s LottoNL-Jumbo teammates celebrated his win even before they reached the finish. It was his third stage victory at the Giro d’Italia after also winning in 2013 and 2014.

“I last won four years ago, it’s been a while…” Battaglin said.

“This year I’ve finally found a good vein of form and started the Giro feeling good. I was strong yesterday and so had to try again today. Yesterday was really a powerful sprint on a really steep climb. Today was a steep climb but at 2km to go and I had a little bit of time to recover and so then do a really good sprint."

Dennis warmed down before pulling on another pink jersey.

“It was a nice day on the bike, on quite a slow pace because of the head wind,” he explained.

Another day in the Sicilian hills

The second day in Sicily again included a series of rolling hills, but with the stage distance only 153km and the serious climbs in the second half of the day, the riders were more relaxed at the start, with some teams and leaders perhaps already thinking about Thursday’s first mountain finish on the slopes of Mount Etna.

Riders signed on late and lined up in the shade as they enjoyed the warm 22C temperatures that are typical for Sicily in May.

An incident caused by a car on the race route sparked a delay to the start and a slight deviation to the race route, but when technical director Stefano Allocchio dropped the flag at kilometre 0, four riders quickly kicked away to form the early break of the day.

With a stiff headwind blowing from the left, the peloton seemed happy to let them go, and so Ryan Mullen and Laurent Didier (Trek-Segafredo), Eugert Zhupa (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia) and Andrea Vendrame (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) laughed at their fortune and began to work together. Their lead quickly reached 5:30 as BMC’s Jempy Drucker lead the peloton in defence of Rohan Dennis’ race lead and maglia rosa.

Other teams were interested in the stage victory, and so Lotto Fix All put Sander Armee on the front to help with the work, while UAE Team Emirates and Team Sunweb also did their bit. That reduced the gap to 3:30 after 100km of steady riding along the southern coast of Sicily towards Sciacca.

Soon after the coastal town, Team Sky hit the front but led by Salvatore Puccio as the race passed through his hometown of Menfi.

As the peloton collected its musettes, it was announced that Guy Niv of the Israel Cycling Academy had retired. The 24-year-old has made history as the first Israeli rider to start a Grand Tour with his teammate and namesake Guy Sagiv. However, he had been struggling with illness and was unable to continue. Niv is the second rider to abandon this Giro after Bardiani-CSF sprinter Andrea Guardini pulled out on stage 4. The race is now three riders light, with Kanstantsin Siutsou failing to start after crashing in his recon of the stage 1 time trial.

Mullen lead the break over the top of the category 4 climb at Santa Margherita del Belice but the gap with 50km to race was down to 2:30.

The stage profile had become much hillier, but the quartet stayed together with Mullen leading through Partanna and over the second categorised climb.

With 40km to go Francois Bidard (AG2R La Mondiale) slipped on the polished road surface, indicating that the tension was rising in the peloton and the kilometres ticked down to an aggressive finale. Steve Morabito and Laurens Ten Dam, domestiques for Pinot and Dumoulin, respectively, also crashed on a descent but were quickly up and away.

The race continued through the valley roads and ghost villages where a major earthquake caused hundreds of deaths and widespread destruction in 1968.

With 23km to go Didier tried an attack, splitting the break but they soon came back together. Vendrame was next to try his hand and went away to reach the final categorised climb in Poggioreale Vecchio. Mullen, Didier and Zhupa eased up and were swept up as Lotto Fix All and Team Sky set the pace at the head of the peloton. The race was on and the speed high.

A tight curve with 14km to go sparked a crash near the back of the peloton, with Domenico Pozzovivo and best young rider Max Schachmann (Quick-Step Floors) amongst those delayed. Three Bahrain-Merida riders quickly helped Pozzovivo get back up to the reduced peloton, but the young German rider needed much longer amongst the team cars.

Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) was not so fortunate. He went off the road with 5.5km to go. He had a soft landing in the grass but never saw his overall classification rivals again.

Vendrame was finally caught with three kilometres to go and Mitchelton-Scott took over. The climb up to Santa Ninfa began with two kilometres to go, and Pozzovivo and then Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) were the first to try their hand. Froome appeared to struggle to hold the wheels as he spun a low gear. Fortunately the front group was spread across the road and stayed together going onto the flat final kilometre.

Visconti tried to anticipate his rivals and dived through the final corner but only served to lead out Battaglin, who timed his sprint much better. 

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