UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Igor Arrieta came back from a crash and a wrong turn to dramatically win stage 5 of the Giro d'Italia, coming around Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) in the final few hundred metres in Potenza to deny the Portuguese rider the stage win.
Eulálio claims pink from the shoulders of Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) as the early break survived to the finish on one of the race's longest - and wettest - stages, culminating in a chaotic finale with Arrieta and Eulálio in the lead.
It was a dramatic run-in to Potenza, with Arrieta crashing out of the lead with 13.5km to go, only to then rejoin Eulálio when the Bahrain rider also crashed a few kilometres later.
But the Spanish rider's rollercoaster day had one last wrong turn, literally, when he went down the wrong side of a split in the road in the final two kilometres. Somehow, though, he came back, and just kept going, catching Eulálio in the finishing straight and powering past him to win the stage after being out front all day.
It was Arrieta who emerged as the first attacker from the break as they took on the category 3 climb in the final 60km, with Eulálio bridging up to chase down the pink jersey and fight Arrieta for the stage win.
"I didn't think it was lost [after crashing], I needed to try until the end, after the hard stage that we did, you never know. I was completely empty in the last kilometres but I knew Eulálio was also the same, and both of us deserved the victory, but in the end I had it.
"When I lost Eulálio in the last two kilometres I was like 'it's not possible' but then I kept pushing, I saw that he cannot go faster than me, and then when I took his wheel I was like 'fuck, maybe I can win one stage'."
The peloton had initially spent a lot of time and effort to keep the break close, fearing a few riders who were within reaching distance of the maglia rosa, but the steam to control the gap ran out, and the gaps ballooned, allowing Eulálio to move into pink as the peloton finished several minutes down.
How it unfolded
The rain poured down on the start of stage 5, a long 203km stage from Praia a Mare to Potenza with two categorised climbs on the way. Climbing only a few kilometres out of the gate, it was a longer and more complicated fight for the breakaway than the stages so far, particularly with Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) trying to get in the move despite being only four seconds down on GC.
Up the first climb, the cat. 2 Prestieri ascent (13.5km at 4.8%), the efforts to form a break continued all the way to the top, and though five riders went over the top in the lead and onto the descent, the peloton didn't settle down, and another seven riders bridged across to make it 12 in the lead after 40km.
The leaders were: Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious), Einer Rubio, Lorenzo Milesi (both Movistar), former pink jersey Thomas Silva, Christian Scaroni (both XDS Astana), Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal-QuickStep), Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike), Ben Turner (Netcompany Ineos), Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani CSF Saber 7), Martin Tjøtta (Uno-X Mobility) and the UAE Team Emirates-XRG duo of Igor Arrieta and stage 4 winner Jhonatan Narváez.
With Rubio at only 10 seconds and Eulálio, Turner and Campenaerts all within 2:15, though, the peloton still kept the gap small. They very gradually allowed it to grow out, but only to just over two minutes, with Lidl-Trek doing most of the controlling. Even GC concerns aside, the rain and cold meant that the peloton did not want to sit up and kept the pace high for warmth as much as anything else. Only one rider counterattacked, Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost), who, after a long solo chase, joined the leaders with 126km to go.
Heading towards the final 100km, the rain finally let up a little bit after a really grim few hours of racing, and the middle part of the stage was mercifully calm, relatively, after a hectic start to the day, with the break working well together and the peloton just keeping things in check.
The next climb didn't officially start until 55km to go, but the road started rising gradually well before that, which invited attacks and splits in the breakaway. With 62km to go, Arrieta put in an attack to go solo and built a slim gap over the rest of the break, whilst behind, Red Bull took control of the peloton to keep eating into the break's lead.
Arrieta started the climb with just under a minute's advantage, and the rest of the breakaway started to fracture as the climb began proper, with Eulálio emerging as the main chaser. He joined Arrieta with 51km to go, as behind Red Bull were sweeping up dropped breakaway riders, including GC threat Rubio.
Arrieta and Eulálio crested the climb with a gap of just under two minutes on the peloton, with 47km still to race. Behind, three riders were dangling between the leaders and the peloton: Silva, Scaroni, Milesi and Garofoli.
With 45km to go, three riders countered from the main group: Johannes Kulset (Uno-X Mobility), Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla), and Andrea Raccagni Noviero (Soudal-QuickStep). Whilst Red Bull were keeping the gaps stable, Lidl-Trek weren't happy with the fact that Eulálio was riding towards taking pink off of Ciccone, prompting the race leader himself to get involved on the front of the bunch and lead the chase. But with no more proper climbing to come, it was going to be a hard ask to bring back the leaders before the finish without a concerted, multi-team effort.
In fact, the two leaders pulled their gap out to over four minutes, the biggest it had been all day, and growing, whilst another attack went out of the peloton, suggesting they weren't really travelling apace into the final 30km.
Going into the final 15km, the gaps were very large, with Arrieta and Eulálio nearly seven minutes up on the pink jersey group, and the chasing group of Silva and Gó 1:25 behind them, with the Portuguese rider clearly now riding into the race lead.
On a wet downhill corner with 13.5km to go, Arrieta slid and crashed out of the lead, having to change bike quickly and try to chase back to Eulálio, which initially looked futile, until the drama intensified when Eulálio also crashed with 6.5km to go on the wet and treacherous roads. Arrieta then joined him for the final 6km, reigniting the battle for the stage win.
It was a very tense and nervous run-in for both riders, clearly scared of crashing again, which possibly contributed to Arrieta then taking a wrong turn in the final two kilometres, riding into tape blocking off one side of the road. It looked like his chance of winning was gone, again, but once more he fought back – not without another wobble on a wet patch though – grinding past Eulálio in sight of the line to win.
Eulálio was clearly disappointed to see Arrieta snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but he will be consoled by moving into pink, with a lead that he can probably defend on stage 6, though it will be a harder ask to keep the lead on Blockhaus on stage 7.
Various attackers and breakaway survivors filled out the top 11 spots, and the GC group then rolled across the line 7:13 down, with no gaps between the major names.
Results
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