Jonathan Milan’s bid to get back on terms with his fellow sprinters on the final stage of the Giro d’Italia after a broken chain ended with a second place behind Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), overall victory in the points competition and, much later, a fine and points penalty from the UCI.
Milan was unlucky enough to have his chain break just six kilometres from the finish in Rome, meaning that - particularly with the Lidl-Trek team car a relatively long way back in the line of support vehicles - a frantic pursuit was in order to try and take part in the sprint.
The Lidl-Trek racer slipstreamed through the race convoy, with one Visma-Lease A Bike team car giving him some considerable assistance to regain contact with the pack prior to his teammates finally guiding Milan through the bunch for the sprint.
However, the UCI commissaires on the race later took the sternest financial view possible of this emergency action, fining Milan the maximum possible according to their regulations, 200 Swiss Francs for “Sheltering behind or taking advantage of the slipstream of a vehicle.” (202 Euros).
Milan was also docked 10 points of his total in the Giro d'Italia points competition - although given he had amassed 352 and was well clear of second-placed Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) on 225, that setback likely barely registered. Last but not least, though, the UCI also removed 15 points from his total in the UCI individual rider rankings.
Visma-Lease A Bike DS Addy Engels was even harder hit in his wallet by the UCI, suffering a 500 Swiss Franc (505 Euros) fine for his generous gesture towards a rival rider after letting him slipstream back up to the bunch.
Speaking after the stage and before he knew about the fine, Milan admitted that it had been a brutally tough finale in his quest for a fourth stage win in a single Giro. He was both pleased with his team’s performance, although frustrated that his final sprint in his home Grand Tour this season had been marred by the incident, which came hard on the heels of another near-miss to Merlier in Pavia last Thursday.
“It’s the last thing you want to happen in the last day of a race in a bunch sprint where you are really looking forward to doing that sprint here, but these things can happen,” Milan, 23, said in a recording released by his team.
“We really changed the bike quickly, we got back even more quickly, it was really tough to get back in, but I was really glad the guys got me back up there to try to do as good a sprint as possible.
“They did a perfect job again today, we missed the sprint and I’m really sorry because after all the work they did for me, I wanted to end this Giro d’Italia with a nice victory.”
Milan insisted that he was still happy with second place, all the same, pointing out that the team had done the maximum possible to ensure that he could fight for the bunch sprint. But he said it was impossible to say if the broken chain and frantic pursuit back to the peloton had affected his chances.
“You never know [if it cost me energy]. I have to say, it was also really important how Merlier did the sprint, he did it perfectly because he started the sprint before the last part [of tarmacked road] before the pave.”
“Afterwards it was really bumpy on the cobbles, so it was impossible to stand up and do a proper sprint. Positioning was really crucial too. He did a perfect sprint.
“After the race, we can always speak about the sprint and if I would have been up there without my problems, we can talk about this and that about what would happened. But we’ll never know. So congrats to him and his sprint and - Voila.”
After the Giro, Milan will now rest for a few days, and then start retraining, heading to altitude camp in Livigno with the national team. After that will come the Nationals and preparation for the Olympic track events in the summer.
