Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) reinforced his title as the rider of the Giro d’Italia’s first week, scoring his third stage win in five days on a tricky, punchy finish in Matera.
The Dane, already in the maglia rosa of race leader and the favourite to win here, duly delivered on his form despite seeming to be in trouble on a late hill at 2km to go.
He made it back to the front – and onto teammate Mathias Vacek’s wheel – inside the final kilometre, perfectly timing his surge to hold off Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) in the final run to the line.
The final of the 151km stage came down to a battle among a group of climbers, puncheurs, and more versatile sprinters after the purer sprinters – including stage 4 winner Casper Van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) and Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease A Bike) – were dropped on the day’s only classified climb, the fourth-category Montescaglioso, at 18km to go.
Pedersen himself looked in trouble as the group hit the final kilometres, dropping back in the group following a push at the front by Primož Roglič and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe squad.
However, the flatter ground leading into the final kilometre gave a chance to recover and move back up.
He and Vacek muscled past Picnic-PostNL pair Romain Bardet and Max Poole ahead of the final left-hand bend before the Czech rider left Pedersen to put the final touches on his third victory of the race.
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"It was an incredible 20km and I suffered a lot on the last climb, so this was a really, really tough one and I wasn't sure," Pedersen said after the stage.
"I knew that over the top of the climb, even when I was a bit behind, that I was in a small group fighting for the win. But I had a really hard time there. I used a lot of energy to move back up to Vacek's wheel. I had to spend energy to come back to at least fight for the win. Then, luckily, I had enough for the last sprint. It was a tough one.
"It's incredible to win and in this jersey too. It's insane and way more than I ever dreamed about. What a Giro we have, and what a team I have around me. Every day, we try to win as much as possible. We try again tomorrow."
The win, and resulting 10-second time bonus, sees Pedersen extend his overall lead to 17 seconds, with Roglič, 12th on the day, remaining in second place. Vacek lies in third at 24 seconds down.
With six points at the day’s two intermediate sprints and another 50 at the line, Pedersen also extends his lead in the maglia ciclamino. He has 139 points to Olav Kooij’s 52 heading into another sprint day, Thursday’s 227km stage 6 to Napoli.
How it unfolded
The riders head toward the Giro d'Italia stage 5 start through Ceglie Messapica (Image credit: Getty Images)
Stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia saw the race continue north up the heel of Italy’s boot, moving from Puglia to Basilicata with a 151km stage from Ceglie Messapica to Matera.
1,487 metres of elevation lay between the riders and the finish, with the stage’s sole classified climb belying the tricky nature of the final 30km.
The fourth-category Montescaglioso (2.8km at 8.5%), the unclassified Castello Tramontano (7.1km at 3.5%), and a late 700m at 8.6% hill would all pose questions to the sprinters and puncheurs before the rising run to the finish line.
A trio of riders from northern Italy ventured out into the break of the day once the flag had dropped to start the stage, with race debutant Giosuè Epis (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) joined by frequent breakaway adventurer Davide Bais (Polti-VisitMalta).
Lorenzo Milesi, one of the pair of Italians on Movistar’s Giro roster, swiftly jumped across to join the pair and make it a three-man move out front, he and Epis, two Lombardy natives, joining Trentino's Bais.
Lidl-Trek’s Piemontese workhorse Jacopo Mosca settled into his usual spot working at the head of the peloton on behalf of race leader and stage contender Mads Pedersen, with the breakaway trio allowed a two-minute advantage.
The stage’s mid-section hugged the Gulf of Taranto, offering flat roads for the riders and the two intermediate sprints of the day, at Massafra and Marina di Ginosa.
Epis led Bais and Milesi across both sprints, adding 24 points to his ‘traguardo volante’ classification total and taking him to second in the rankings for the minor competition, nine points short of Alessandro Tonelli (Polti-VisitMalta).
Behind the breakaway, a small battle broke out for the three and one point on offer for fourth and fifth place, with points also counting towards the main points classification. Alpecin-Deceuninck deployed Jensen Plowright to deny Pedersen’s charge to the line, but the Dane scooped up the six points, nevertheless.
Mads Pedersen has a laugh after the intermediate sprint with James Plowright (Image credit: Getty Images)
As the race turned inland towards the Red Bull Kilometre at Bernalda and the finish in Matera, the breakaway trio carried a reduced lead of 1:40. In the peloton, VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè duo Filippo Magli and Alessandro Pinarello suffered a minor double crash before Bernalda, while up the road Epis scored 15 points and six bonus seconds at the Red Bull-emblazoned sprint.
Epis would be the first man from the breakaway caught by the peloton after he dropped back following attacks from Bais and Milesi heading into the final 40km. He was reabsorbed with 32km to go, 4km before the top of the climb at Montescaglioso.
In the peloton, Lidl-Trek were joined by UAE Team Emirates-XRG on the front. The subsequent upping of the pace on the 8.5% incline saw sprinters including Kooij, Van Uden, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), and Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) drop away.
Up front, the break hung on with an ever-reducing advantage, one that would fall under the minute-mark heading into the final 25km. Further back, riders including Groves, Max Kanter (XDS-Astana), and Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) made their way back to the peloton between the hills, though many more, including Kooij and Van Uden, wouldn’t return.
Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar) leads the day's breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
Work on the front by UAE and EF Education-EasyPost heading up the unclassified Castello Tramontano meant Milesi and Bais were brought back with 12km to go. With Milesi back in the group, Movistar joined the fray, too, while several other teams, including Lidl-Trek, also lurked.
Visma-Lease A Bike were among the teams working on the front inside the final 10km, but their man, Wout van Aert, who once upon a time might have thrived on this terrain, was dropped 4km from the finish.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe took over on the unclassified rise at 3km to go, with Roglič’s squad – and Vacek’s own pace – seemingly too much for Pedersen. Several climbers, including Simon Yates (Visma-Lease A Bike) and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), were also up front, but they’d give way once more on the flatter roads following the hill.
The maglia rosa of Pedersen floated back to the front as easily as he had gone backwards, with him and Vacek again proving a winning pairing in the final metres of the race. He still had a 200-metre sprint to pull off, defending his position from the late push by Zambanini to secure another stage win.
Dani Ostanek is Senior News Writer at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor, later being hired full-time. Her favourite races include Strade Bianche, the Tour de France Femmes, Paris-Roubaix, and Tro-Bro Léon.
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