An ultra-fast Giro d'Italia stage between Voghera and Milan saw Norway's Fredrik Dversnes claim a spectacularly narrow breakaway victory, the first ever for Uno-X Mobility in the Italian Grand Tour.
With a crash-reduced peloton snapping at their heels, Dversnes outpaced breakaway companions Mirco Maestri (Polti-VisitMalta) and Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani-CSF 7 Saber) for the victory.
Seconds later, Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) led in the peloton to recoup the points jersey from Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), but with the major prize of a stage win eluding all the sprinters following a futile chase of the four-rider move coming up short in the final metres.
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The stage was overshadowed by an in-race rider protest over race safety, spearheaded by race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), which saw the final lap in Milan suspended for GC rankings.
Vingegaard remains in the top spot overall as the race reaches its final rest day in Milan, a city which has often brought down the final curtain on the Giro, but this time there are still six stages to go.
Asked how they had managed to keep the peloton at distance on a stage seemingly designed for the sprinters, Dversnes answered "that's a good question, actually."
"Super-good help from the other guys in the breakaway, the Italian from Bardiani and Polti guys, they were really strong today. I knew I had good opportunities because I'm pretty good at going in breaks, so this was my big shot."
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"With five Ks to go, of course you start believing [you can get there] but you have to think about what to do and what's important and not about what happens."
Victory for the team in their first participation in the Giro "is big, it's really big, it's an amazing feeling."
Stage 15 winner Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) shows his emotion seconds after the victory (Image credit: Getty Images)
How it unfolded
A flurry of early attacks sparked by Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani-CSF 7 Saber), pushing for his seventh break of the race, brought an instant response first from Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) and then Polti-VisitMalta duo Mattia Bais and Mirco Maestri. Attempts by more riders from Alpecin-Premier Tech to get across were squashed by Soudal-QuickStep's Jasper Stuyven, all in the longer-term interests of Paul Magnier in a possible bunch sprint. So the race then settled into what seemed like a fairly humdrum transition stage routine of four breakaway riders with little chance of success ahead and a mixture of sprinters' teams patrolling the front of the peloton.
The first interest point, the sprint at Pavia, was tackled by the quartet with an advantage of 2:30, while Magnier easily outpowered maglia ciclamina Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) to go level on points. The rest of the sprinters, though, showed absolutely no interest, suggesting the Giro's points jersey battle is now down to just two contenders.
The race moved on with virtually no change in the scenario, the four leading by an advantage of around two minutes as they approached Milan and the first of four final 16.3-kilometre laps of the city. Soudal-QuickStep, combined with Unibet Rose Rockets and Lidl-Trek, ensured the break was at exactly the right kind of distance that they could be pulled in when needed, and nobody, it seems, was complaining too hard about that particular scenario.
Lidl-Trek's Max Walscheid worked hard to try to bring the break back (Image credit: Getty Images)
However, there were complaints of another kind, and lots of them, regarding the riders safety on a finishing circuit overly infested - in the riders eyes at least - with the 'wrong' kind of road furniture, poor surfaces and barriers. The sight of Vingegaard coming down to the commissaires and asking for at least part of the stage be neutralised for the last lap was a highly unusual one, but although security concerns often feature highly on his personal agenda, he was far from being the only unhappy rider. Finally, in any case, the riders’ joint request was answered, and with 16.3 kilometres to go, the point when the GC riders were able to sit up, the four had a 40-second advantage, and the hunt for the breakaways was on with a vengeance.
Yet what had seemed like a nailed-on sprint stage suddenly metamorphosed into something different. With speeds averaging 51.3km, set to be the third fastest stage ever in the Giro - although the final lap neutralisation may affect that evaluation - and Bais visibly sacrificing itself suddenly it looked as if the break might have a chance of staying away.
Virtually no time at all was lost in the last five kilometres, where the gap still stood at a comparatively high 57 seconds, and even the leadout men were being flung into the fray by the sprinters’ teams in a desperate bid to bring them back. Lidl-Trek and Unibet Rose Rockets were all committing hard, Lidl even using up a GC racer like Derek Gee-West and Soudal-QuickStep also adding their shoulder to the wheel. Nerves are normally very high in the peloton in a bunch sprint, but the way Andreas Leknessund, given his Uno-X Mobiliity teammate was up the road, shouted at the TV motorbike to move away and stop potentially drafting the main group, showed exactly how frayed the sprinters' team's nerves were getting.
Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) sets the pace at the front of the four-rider breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
And how right they were to be getting nervous too, as the quartet's collaboration refused to crumble right into the final kilometre, where a margin of 20 seconds meant they had just about enough time to hesitate a little before going for the sprint. Meanwhile, a late crash in what was left in the bunch - the GC riders opting to soft-pedal in given the suspension - did not help matters and nor, too, did a panicked attack by a Unibet Rose Rockets rider just when it seemed the peloton might have regained contact with the four ahead.
But they didn't, and instead Dversnes opted to lead out the sprint, charging past Maestri and easily claiming the victory by a couple of bike lengths. As he said in his post-race interviews, much of the hard work had already been done by then, but to be able to finish it off with the peloton snapping at their heels and with so much at stake - a first-time Giro win for himself and the team - after such a tense finale was no mean achievement. Meanwhile, with a rest day beckoning, the peloton could finally relax for 36 hours before racing began again.
Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) took the field sprint for fifth place, and regained the lead in the points classification (Image credit: Getty Images)
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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