Giro d'Italia: Arnaud Démare wins stage 6

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Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) surged to a dominant victory in an uphill sprint on stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia, dispatching his rivals with seeming ease in Matera and taking the points jersey with it.

The French national champion won by several bike lengths ahead of Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb), while Fabio Felline (Astana) took third just behind. Bora-Hansgrohe's Peter Sagan, wearer of the maglia ciclamino on the stage, ended up in a lowly ninth place.

"This is amazing," Démare said after the finish. "It was an incredibly hard finish. I lost position but I didn’t go crazy, I got back up, followed Astana, stayed on their wheel and then I kept following them. I launched the sprint and can't believe I won it.

"I said if I won the first one, there'd be more. It's good to win early and feel good. We tried and now we've shaken off the pressure. It's magnifique to win like this. I put my arms and I'm super happy to win this way.

"It was risky, and I didn't think there'd be a chance for a sprint and that Bora would control the race.  At 200 metres I said I'd go for it and it worked out. Thanks to team who trusted me and led me."

Démare looked to come back from a near-impossible position in the final kilometre, swamped with 500 metres to go before jumping onto a move by Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) and Felline around the final two left-hand bends.

Sagan, meanwhile, was stuck on the inside and held up as Astana took over on the run to the line. His sprint never really got going, in contrast to Démare, who blasted past the Astana lead out on the 2.6 per cent gradient to the line. Matthews' late dash saw him overcome eventual fourth-place finisher Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates) before edging out Felline at the last.

Démare's win sees him in the clear lead of the points classification – he lies on 106 points to Sagan's 67, while Matthews lies third on 55 points. João Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep) retains the race lead, 43 seconds ahead of Bahrain McLaren's Pello Bilbao. The Portuguese youngster didn't enjoy a drama-free day though, being hit by UAE Team Emirates climber Brandon McNulty after stopping to fix his radio with 37km to go.

How it unfolded

Stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia took the peloton 188km from Castrovillari east across the 'instep' of Italy to the ancient city of Matera in Basilicata. It was the first time since 2014 that the southern region hosted a stage finish, though the day would be less taxing than that stage, won by Diego Ulissi in Viggiano.

The early kilometres of the stage would take in several uncategorised climbs before a long, slightly downhill run to the finale with the category 3 ascent to Millotta (4.7km at 6.8 per cent) coming with 25.7km to go.

The final kilometres of the stage would pose a tricky challenge for some sprinters, with the final 10 kilometres rising up and a finishing straight angling slightly uphill at 2.6 per cent. A possible launchpad for the puncheurs lay 2km from the line – a 750 metre rise at 6.3 per cent.

A flurry of attacks went from the start of the stage, with a four-man group prevailing before 10km had been raced. Vini Zabù-Brado-KTM's Marco Frapporti made the break for the second time in three days, with the Lombard joined by fellow northerners, Mattia Bais (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) of Trentino and Filippo Zana (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè) of Vicenza. EF Pro Cycling's Australian James Whelan completed the move.

The quartet gained a maximum advantage of nine minutes in the early afternoon as Deceuninck-QuickStep, working for race leader Almeida, and Bora-Hansgrohe, riding for points leader Peter Sagan, did the bulk of pacemaking at the front of the peloton.

There was little drama through the mid-part of the stage, save for Whelan and Frapporti suffering mechanicals before making it back to the break and CCC Team's Ilnur Zakarin involved in a minor crash in the peloton.

At the first sprint of the day, both Sagan and stage 4 winner Démare went for the four points available behind the break. Sagan only ended up with two, though, losing out to the Frenchman as well as his own teammate Maciej Bodnar after a mix-up in the run for the line.

Team Sunweb joined in the work at the front, helping to bring the gap down to a more manageable six minutes with 80km to race. Over the next 10 kilometres, the peloton's high pace had swept another 1:45 away, with the sprinters teams clearly signalling their intent for the final.

With 37km to go, and with the break under two minutes away, race leader Almeida was involved in a crash. He and teammate Iljo Keisse pulled to the side of the road to fix a problem with his radio, but an unsighted McNulty hit Almeida from behind. Both riders were fine, though, quickly making it back to the peloton.

Up front, Frapporti decided to attack the break 32km from the line, not long after having remonstrated with Whelan about the amount of work that was being done. He was caught at the base of the climb to Millotta, though – the only real prize left on the stage for the quartet.

Whelan jumped away midway up the climb, taking 50 seconds by the top as his breakmates were caught by the peloton. At the back, sprinters Elia Viviani (Cofidis) and Álvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) lost contact with the peloton.

Work from Bora-Hansgrohe and Jumbo-Visma ended Whelan's adventure with just under 14km to go. Paweł Poljański stuck to the front in service of Sagan afterwards, keeping the pace high until the 7.5km to go mark. A host of teams – including the Sunweb and Groupama-FDJ trains – took over at the front, working for their sprinters as well as keeping GC riders safe on the run to the 3km banner.

There were surprisingly no real attempts to get away on the small hill at two kilometres, and Bora-Hansgrohe took to the front once again over the top with Matteo Fabbro. His work ended just inside the final kilometre, at which point Trek-Segafredo's Vincenzo Nibali mounted a surprise but short-lived attack.

Bora-Hansgrohe's Rafał Majka took over heading into the final 600 metres, with Sagan in third wheel and Démare some way back but moving up. The final two bends proved decisive for positioning in the dash for the line, with the Frenchman following Felline and carrying momentum around the outside, as Sagan was held up by a concertina effect on the inside.

Fuglsang's lead out was a launchpad for Felline to go, while Andrea Vendrame in second wheel didn't have enough kick to challenge. Démare launched down the left and easily outsprinted Felline to the line. Molano's sprint didn't quite get going either, with Matthews' decision to take his wheel proving the wrong one with Démare already bike lengths ahead before the Australian jumped for second place.