Giro d'Italia: Davide Ballerini avoids mass crash, speeds to stage 6 victory in Naples

XDS-Astana claimed their second stage victory of the Giro d'Italia as Davide Ballerini outpaced Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) on a finish in Naples ruined by a last-corner crash.

Giro organisers had eschewed the flat finish in the city of previous years, instead routing the peloton onto cobbles in the final kilometre with a sharp bend positioned 300 metres from the line.

Predictably, as rain dampened the cobbles, a host of riders slid out and hit the deck, depriving the race of the expected sprint battle to the line.

Up front, a handful of riders picked their way through the carnage, with Ballerini and Stuyven emerging far ahead of anyone else.

Behind the duo, maglia ciclamino Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) rounded out the podium after some acrobatics while avoiding the wreck, outpacing Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Ben Turner (Netcompany Ineos) to take third.

Unibet Rose Rockets had led the peloton for much of the run-in, and the French squad held the advantage into the final bend with Elmar Reinders leading out Dylan Groenewegen. They'd walk away without any reward for their efforts, however, as the wet cobbles and hairpin turn combined to take them both out, along with several other riders.

Ballerini and Stuyven were the only riders at the head of the race who avoided being held up in the totally preventable pileup, and so the expected mass sprint finish was reduced to a one-on-one fight, with the Italian having the speed to shoot for his first Grand Tour win.

"Actually I was thinking to [try to] win one stage in the Giro, like all the other years I've been participating. But today was not on the plan. Today, the sprinter was Matteo Malucelli and I was trying to do the maximum for him," said Ballerini after the finish.

"But when we arrived in the last corner, I saw that the first two guys had a crash. I just exited from the corner and I heard in the radio 'Go, go, go – to the finish. There is a gap.' I just started and then I was hoping the line would come really fast. I made it and I'm really happy.

"Finally! It's really important because we work a lot for this and in cycling there is always some problem. Especially when you don't expect a win, it comes."

Beyond the battle for the stage win, there was no change in the general classification after the stage. The peloton reached Naples all together, and so Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) continues in the maglia rosa, 2:51 up on Igor Arrieta (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

How it unfolded

Stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia took the race to Naples for the fifth consecutive year, with a sprint finish again on the cards following triumphs by Mads Pedersen, Olav Kooij, and Kaden Groves in the past three editions.

The 141km run from the ancient Greek ruins of Paestum was largely flat, the only major challenge of the day coming in the form of the fourth-category climb at Cava de' Tirreni (6.4km at 3%) after 40km of racing.

The final, though, was altered from previous Naples finishes, with the peloton instead posed with a more technical run-in, including a stretch of cobbled city streets.

A day on from the breakaway's triumph in Potenza, there wasn't much for potential breakaway riders to go at today, then. But that didn't prevent five riders from taking off 10km into the stage.

Alpecin-Premier Tech, shorn of their leader and sprint hope Kaden Groves, sent Luca Vergallito and Edward Planckaert up the road, the duo racing clear without any other teams joining them.

Not until Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani CSF-Saber 7) attacked after 28km, anyway. The Italian, fifth in the mountain classification, took his chance before the start of the day's climb and was soon joined by his teammate Martin Marcellusi and Polti-VisitMalta rider Mattia Bais in the chase.

In the ensuing kilometres, the trio bridged a minute's gap up to the Alpecin pairing to make it a lead quintet with 109km remaining.

Less than a minute behind them, teams including Unibet Rose Rockets, Soudal-QuickStep and Lidl-Trek led the peloton. Planckaert joined them before the top of the climb, the Dutchman dropping back from the break, having realised that the move had next to no chance at any success.

Unsurprisingly, Bais made a move to protect his teammate Diego Pablo Sevilla's maglia azzurra. He jumped clear at the top of the climb to grab three points as Tarozzi – 30 points down on Sevilla with 12 of his own – added another two to his total in fourth place in the competition.

The remaining four breakaway riders continued after the climb, though their lead didn't grow much beyond 40 seconds. They retained that advantage at the day's intermediate sprint at Brusciano. There, Tarozzi led the way ahead of Bais to extend his lead in the intermediate sprint classification with 48 points to Sevilla's 28.

Tarozzi wouldn't last out front to extend his lead in the Red Bull Kilometre competition, though. Instead, the break was brought back early and reabsorbed by the peloton with 37km to run.

From there, the sprinters' teams took over, and Lidl, QuickStep, and Unibet led the race into the final 30km. A small skirmish broke out at the Red Bull Kilometre sprint, with Filippo Magli (Bardiani CSF-7 Saber) beating Ludovico Crescioli (Polti-VisitMalta) and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) to the line.

A brief foray off the front by Alec Segaert (Bahrain Victorious) followed, though things were all together again for the closing 20km. It was full speed to Naples thereafter, with a host of sprint trains taking to the front of the peloton for the final run-in.

All riders made it safely to the 5km mark, where the '3km rule' to protect GC times comes into effect on Giro d'Italia sprint stages.

Unibet Rose Rockets took control at the front as the race sped into Naples, the Dutch team lined up with four riders ahead of Groenewegen. The Milan and Magnier trains at Lidl-Trek and Soudal-QuickStep moved up at 3km to go.

Unibet took three riders into the final kilometre, though even with their prime position, little could have prepared them for what would happen next as both Groenewegen and his leadout man, Elmar Reinders, slid out while trying to navigate the final bend.

Behind them, a host of other riders did the same, with the carnage blocking much of the peloton from contesting the stage victory. Ballerini and Stuyven, riding on the inside line just behind the Unibet duo, were the only two who avoided that fate, the pair taking advantage of the mass crash to race clear and duke it out for the win.

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