Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) was stunned when he stopped beyond the finish line in Milan. Near him, Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) was celebrating a surprise stage victory, while the Italian riders in the break could only despair about missing out.
Milan struggled to speak as he realised he had missed out on another possible sprint victory in the 2026 Giro d'Italia. In Bulgaria, he had lost his sprint train and then kicked too early on stage 3. In Naples, he was slowed by the late crash and team attacks had taken the glory on other stages.
This time, the four-rider breakaway had outfoxed and outpowered the peloton, using their power and the corners of the Milan finishing circuit to stay away. Milan has still to win a sprint, with only Rome next Sunday as a last chance.
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"We did a super job, everyone pulled, even Derek Gee-West. We tried our best," Milan said, praising his teammates.
"It was pretty impressive the speed the break was going. We were pulling full gas, there was a big commitment from all the teams, more or less. We tried our best but it wasn't enough."
There were some insinuations that the attackers had taken advantage of the television motorbike ahead of them but Dversnes soon rebuked them.
Lukáš Kubiš of Unibet Rose Rockets struggled to understand why the peloton didn't catch the attack, despite him and his teammates doing a lot of high-speed chasing.
"What happened? The breakaway won, that's what happened," he said.
"We knew that the final loops of a city circuit are harder to bring the breakaway back, that was why we wanted the gap to be less than two minutes when we entered the circuits. We rode 55-60km/h and it was just too hard to bring it back.
"Of course, it's disappointing, because we wanted to win. At least we have one more chance in Rome."
The Unibet-protected sprinter Dylan Groenewegen was equally as pragmatic, even if he had again missed out on a chance to give his ProTeam a historic first Grand Tour stage win. He finished sixth on the stage, just behind Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep), who won the field sprint for fifth place.
"We tried, but we came-up short," Groenewegen explained to Cyclingnews and FloBikes.
"We did everything we could, we put the whole team in the front, and I think a lot of teams, Lidl-Tek, Soudal did too. The breakaway was just too strong."
Groenwegen was not looking for an excuse but had his explanation for the defeat.
"Everybody is tired at this point, two weeks into a Grand Tour. The local laps made it quite hard too," he said.
We have one more week to try to win, maybe with Wout Poels in the mountains, and other guys. For me, now we look forward to the Rome stage."
Magnier found comfort in taking back the cyclamen-coloured points jersey from Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) but also looked to the final sprint in Rome after the rough roads of Milan derailed his lead out train.
"We lost a lot of riders with mechanicals, the final circuit was really tricky with the manhole covers and the railway crossings, it was also a bit dangerous, that is why we asked to put the GC guys out in the last lap," he said.
"It was crazy fast and when you're not heavier than 7kg, it's pretty hard to race fast. On the city centre circuits we had to sprint out of every corner if you were down to 20th position in the bunch. When my teammates went to the front, they were already on the limit, so it was hard for them to chase it back.
"I think the cooperation in the peloton was at the highest level, the cooperation there was really good but the breakaway won this time."
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