To describe Olav Kooij’s Giro d’Italia bunch sprint victory at Naples as ‘hard fought’ would surely be something of an understatement, with the Visma-Lease A Bike fastman taking a narrow but convincing triumph ahead of Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) on a day anything but certain to be resolved by a mass dash for the line.
Being bereft of a leadout man following Christophe Laporte’s abandon earlier this week was just one of the challenges facing Kooij on stage 9, as a series of late attacks by punchy riders of the calibre of Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jonathan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) on a late chain of hills tested the sprint teams capacity to control affairs to the limit.
