Cavendish and Ewan dropped ahead of sprint finish on Giro d'Italia stage 5

BALATONFURED HUNGARY MAY 08 Mark Cavendish of United Kingdom and Team QuickStep Alpha Vinyl Caleb Ewan of Australia and Team Lotto Soudal Arnaud Demare of France and Team Groupama FDJ Hailu Biniam Girmay of Eritrea and Team Intermarch Wanty Gobert Matriaux purple points jersey Fernando Gaviria Rendon of Colombia and UAE Team Emirates and Jakub Mareczko of Italy and Team Alpecin Fenix sprint to win during the 105th Giro dItalia 2022 Stage 3 a 201km stage from Kaposvr to Balatonfred Giro WorldTour on May 08 2022 in Balatonfured Hungary Photo by Stuart FranklinGetty Images
Mark Cavendish and Caleb Ewan were in the final mix on stage 3, the Manxman winning the stage (Image credit: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

The sprint finish of stage 5 at the Giro d'Italia in Messina will not include top favourites Mark Cavendish (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) after the pair were among the riders tailed off the rear of the peloton on the mid-stage climb.

The 174km day from Catania to Messina was a largely flat stage, save for the second-category climb of Portella Mandrazzi, which peaked after 75.3km.

Heading up the hill, with over 100km left to run, Alpecin-Fenix pushed the pace on the front of the peloton in order to put rival sprinters into as much trouble as possible.

The Dutch team quickly succeeded in their mission as Ewan dropped back midway up the climb while Cavendish was shed 4km from the top. Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) also got into trouble, cresting the top of the climb a minute down while Cavendish and four teammates lay at three minutes and Ewan – also with teammates – was a further 1:30 down.

Up front, Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert (for Biniam Girmay) and UAE Team Emirates (for Fernando Gaviria) joined the work along with Alpecin-Fenix, who worked on behalf of maglia ciclamino Mathieu van der Poel.

Démare was able to get back in with 70km to run, but despite the best efforts of QuickStep-AlphaVinyl behind, Cavendish, who won stage 3 in Hungary, was unable to make it back.

The Belgian team brought the gap down to two minutes but appeared to give up the chase at 50km to go. Ewan, even further out of the picture, was also unable to get back to the peloton ahead of the finish.

Come the end of the day, Démare was rewarded for his fightback by outsprinting his rivals to take his first win of 2022, the sixth Giro stage victory of his career. Ewan and Cavendish finished in 155th and 157th, 11:57 down on the Frenchman.

"What can you do, you just have to try," Cavendish said after the stage. "In a different situation, if they happen, you'd probably come back. For instance, we were 30 seconds behind FDJ and Caleb was behind us – ironically if all of us were together we would probably have come back.

"It's just how it is, we had to give it everything, the boys did everything and I'm so proud of them, so proud. In the end, you know, it's all right, we try.

"You are aways disappointed but we knew that was going to happen today. It was a bonus if we could sprint today, but we have to try, and we'll try again."

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Daniel Ostanek
Production editor

Daniel Ostanek is production editor at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor and later being hired as staff writer. Prior to joining the team, he had written for most major publications in the cycling world, including CyclingWeekly, Rouleur, and CyclingTips.

 

Daniel has reported from the world's top races, including the Tour de France and the spring Classics, and has interviewed many of the sport's biggest stars, including Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Demi Vollering, and Anna van der Breggen.

 

As well as original reporting, news and feature writing, and production work, Daniel also runs The Leadout newsletter and oversees How to Watch guides throughout the season. His favourite races are Strade Bianche and the Volta a Portugal, and he rides a Colnago C40.