Giro d'Italia: Arnaud Démare wins stage 11

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Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) claimed his fourth stage victory of the 2020 Giro d'Italia and stretched his lead in the ciclamino jersey competition back out over Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a frantic finish in Rimini.

Sagan pounced when Démare hit out but did not have the speed to contend with the Frenchman and settled for second with Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-Quickstep) in third.

Sagan appeared indecisive in the final 300 metres, flicking right to follow Fernando Gaviria before changing his mind to head left and dive for Démare's wheel - but the hesitation cost him and the French champion flew across the line with a full bike length on the Slovakian.

"Impressive, really impressive," a beaming Démare said afterwards. "The whole team moved up for me. They had to bring the breakaway back and set a really high pace. 

"We had to do well getting through all the tight turns in the town but of course before the finish, everybody did a great job. Jacopo Guarnieri was fantastic. There he was for 400 metres and I was waiting. Then, in the end, I launched the sprint and I knew that people were trying to get around but I was strongest for the line.

"It feels amazing. Of course, I didn't think I could get four stages here. I was looking for a stage win and I'm so happy. I really want to congratulate the whole team because it's their victory as well. They believed in me, everyone has worked really hard and the work is paying off."

With the sprinters taking full responsibility for a rare flat stage on the Adriatic coastline, the overall classification contenders needed only stay out of trouble and João Almeida (Deceuninck-Quickstep) did just that, hanging onto his 34 second lead over Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb), with Pello Bilbao (Bahrain McLaren) still third at 43 seconds.

How it unfolded

After ten hard days of racing, one rest day and half a dozen COVID-19 positives in the Giro d'Italia, the sprinters finally had one day that they could hold firmly in their grasp and were determined to make the most of the mainly flat 182km route from Porto Sant'Elpidio to Rimini along the Adriatic coast.

They had a beautiful late-summer day for the ride northward, though the October shadows that rode alongside the peloton were far longer than usual when the race is held in May.

Only 144 riders were left in the race after the withdrawal of Mitchelton-Scott, Jumbo-Visma and Sunweb's Michael Matthews because of the coronavirus positive tests, while Lawson Craddock (EF Pro Cycling) headed home on the rest day to attend the birth of his child.

Just a few kilometres after the flag dropped, the attacks began as usual, with the home riders keen to fight for the minor classifications that come with cash bonuses but little in the way of glory or listings in the history books.

Mattia Bais (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Fabio Mazzucco (Bardiani CSF Faizane), Francesco Romano (Bardiani CSF Faizane), Sander Armee (Lotto Soudal) and as we mentioned before, Marco Frapporti (Vini Zabu-KTM) quickly forged an accord and set about gaining ground on the Groupama-FDJ-led bunch.

Once the gap grew to four minutes, UAE came to the fore with Cofidis for sprinters Fernando Gaviria and Elia Viviani, respectively, and brought the five rider's lead down to a more manageable two minutes and change after 100km, where the gap then stabilised.

Frapporti, leading the Intergiro sprint classification, added to his tally by coming second to Romano in Pesaro after 105.9km, beating out Bais who started the day four points behind him in that ranking by two points.

In the peloton behind the ciclamino jersey battle raged yet again, with Démare getting the better of Sagan to edge out his lead in the points ranking by one more point.

There was a single mountain sprint on the day at the Monte San Bartolo, 111.3km into the stage, where Bais led Mazzucco and Armée across the line but the sprint was more about pride than anything else.

The fight for the bonus sprint point in Coriano just under 30km later was a touch more heated, with Frapporti lunging for the line but just missing out again to Romano, with Bais hitting out too early and fading to third.

With 36km to go the breakaway splintered, with Romano, Mazzucco and Frapporti missing out on a move by Armee and Bais - the latter adding to his tally in the Fuga (breakaway) classification to surpass the leader of that classification, Salvatore Puccio.

Viviani came to grief in a roundabout when a motorbike ploughed into the back of his bike, sending the Italian sprawling on the tarmac. That took the wind out of the chase as Cofidis scrambled to bring their sprinter back. Where Armee and Bais had under two minutes before the crash, they gained half a minute or so in the confusion.

Ahead, the two leaders worked well together while the trio of Italians in pursuit sat in no-man's land halfway between the front group and the peloton which got back to full flight with 27km to go - needing to push hard to seal that 2:13 gap.

Bais suffered on the last uncategorized climb out of Santa Cristina, leaving Armee to fend off the hard-charging peloton alone over 24km.

Viviani finally made it back to the peloton with 16km to go while Armee continued to hang onto 1:45 on the long, hard slog to the coast. It was nearly as hard for the peloton which, despite the help from UAE Team Emirates, only managed to carve out half a minute over 5km.

Finally, inside 10km to go, Deceuninck-Quickstep and Ineos came forward and Armee's legs, having long since turned leaden, were no match for the might of the bunch. His suffering finally ended with 6.5km to go.

UAE Team Emirates led the peloton under the 5km to go banner but had to contend with Israel Start-Up Nation as Mathias Brändle took over to put his time trialing prowess to work lining out the bunch past the Ruota Panoramica Ferris wheel - its movement stilled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Groupama-FDJ left it late, taking the lead for Démare inside 2km to go but gave up the lead to UAE at the red kite before Miles Scotson went back to the front with Jacopo Guarnieri to launch Démare perfectly for his fourth stage win of the Giro d'Italia.