Giro d'Italia: Greipel wins stage 7

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Andre Greipel took his second stage victory at this year’s Giro d’Italia and gave Lotto Soudal a third consecutive victory with another well-timed sprint victory.

The German ‘Gorilla’ seemed to have lost his place at the front in the hectic twisting finish but flexed his muscles and used his speed to somehow emerge  as Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) launched is sprint. Greipel followed Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) out of the traffic and then kicked to the line. Greipel has now won stages in the last 10 Grand Tours he has ridden. It was a masterful display of sprinting, especially because it was far more than just a surge to the finish.

Six Italian sprinters finished in the top ten but again missed out on victory. Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek Segafredo) was second and Modolo was third and could only bow their heads in defeat yet again. Ewan managed to hang on for fourth but must have known he failed to finish off a fantastic opportunity to win.

Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) had fought to survive over the climbs but was taken out of the sprint due to a puncture just five kilometres from the line.

Greipel took time to look for his Lotto Soudal teammates after the finish and celebrated with them. They played a key role in his victory both during the stage chasing the break and in the lead out. Greipel also took the red points jersey, while Tim Wellens took the blue climber’s jersey.

“It was a hard day, a really hard day,” Greipel explained. “There was a strong break upfront but my team did an amazing job again. They killed themselves to bring the race back together.”

“We knew it was going to be a tricky finish with the corners and the crosswinds. I had two guys going a bit too early, maybe, but I was over the moon with their performances. I was looking for a wheel to follow, I thought it was going to be too late but luckily I found a way through. I still had good power left so I was looking for a gap and Modolo stayed on his line so I found the gap and launched my sprint.”

“If we were playing football we'd say we've scored a hat trick with three consecutive stage wins. We were already happy with our Giro so far and now we have won three of the seven stages, so it has been amazing.”

Day off for Dumoulin

Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) finished safely in the peloton and so kept he leader’s pink jersey. He was happy to keep the jersey for another day but was irritated by the tactics of the Nippo Vini Fantini team who rode to set up Damiano Cunego so he could fight for the points on the early climb of the day.

“On the climb they went really fast and there were a lot of attacks and the bunch split but I had Tobias Ludvigsson with me and eventually a good break went, and everything came back and it was fairly controlled. But it was a hard day again.”

Dumoulin leads Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) by 26 seconds, with big favourites Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) at 41 seconds, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) at 47 seconds and Mikel Landa (Team Sky) at 1:08. He faces a challenging weekend with a dirt road climb before the finish in Arezzo on Saturday and then the rolling 40km time trial in the Chianti vineyards on Sunday.

“I did Strade Bianche two times and I really liked it. I’m looking forward to it,” Dumoulin claimed.

“The time trial is a really important stage. It’s one of my key points of the Giro for me. But it suits me and I hope to win it. It’s difficult to tell how much time I can gain on my rivals but I like the course, it’s up and down, but it means it also suits other riders like Nibali too.”

“Of course I’m a little scared of third week, I didn’t go to altitude or train in the mountains for this Giro, I really surprised myself this week but I know the last week will be vey hard.”

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How it happened

The 211km stage to Foligno seemed destined to end in a sprint just as it did in 2014 when Nacer Bouhanni won. However the hills in the first third of the stage were always going to inspire some attacks and the wet roads added an extra factor. There are no longer easy days at the Giro d’Italia.

Damiano Cunego and his Nippo Vini Fantini teammates are fighting for the climber’s jersey and so tried to control the early attacks. However Patrick Grestch (AG2R-La Mondiale), Stefan Küng (BMC) and Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff) managed to surge away on the Le Svolte Di Popoli climb. Thursday’s stage winner Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) then managed to beat Cunego to the sprint for fourth place and so snatched the lead in the climber’s jersey competition.

With the peloton split into three parts, alarm bells rang. Before the summit a group of 50 riders formed at the front but Kung was especially aggressive and soon jumped away again on the descent, as other riders worried more about keeping warm and dry. Kung was joined by Axel Domont (Ag2r), Giulio Ciccone (Bardiani-CSF), Stefan Denifl (IAM), Ilya Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida) and Daniel Martinez (Wilier-Triestina-Southeast) and so the real break of the day went away.

The peloton was happy to let them go, with Giant-Alpecin doing some work but willing to pass on responsibility for the chase to the sprinters’ teams. However with other climbs later in the stage, Etixx called their rivals’ bluff and opted not to work. The Lotto Soudal and FDJ teams eventually took up the chase to ensure that the break did not gain more three minutes as the race passed through Rieti and then on to Terni, one of the most central points of Italy.

There have been relatively few crashes so far in the Giro d’Italia but the dangers of road racing returned in a flash when Javier Moreno (Movistar) was seen lying in the road. Fortunately the race medics reached him quickly and he moved his arm, indicating pain in his collarbone. He was put in a neck brace and stretcher and taken to hospital.

The break continued to fight on but Lotto Soudal continued their determined chase and the gap came down as the break suffered on the Valico della Somma climb. A spat over sprinting after sitting on between Martinez and Ciccone also damaged their chances. Eventually Kung took off alone and tried to time trial to the finish with 24km to go. He opened a 50 second gap but had little chance and was swept up with seven kliometres to go.

Kittel was spotted changing bikes. He quickly got away but it would be impossible for him to get back on and to try to win the sprint. At that point Lotto Soudal took over to set-up the other German super sprinter. The Italians tried to swamp and surprise Greipel, with Caleb Ewan in a perfect position. However Greipel hit back, fought his way through the traffic and surged past Ewan to win stage number two for him and third for the Lotto Soudal team.

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