Mads Pedersen won stage six of the Giro d’Italia to complete a grand slam of career sprint wins, but only after a brave two-man breakaway was caught with 300 metres to go until the finish line in Naples.
Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco-AlUla) were part of an early five-man break but, as their supporting cast dwindled, worked together to stay clear. With 25km to go on the circular route along the Amalfi coast, the pair still held a lead of more than two minutes over the chasing pack.
As they entered the final kilometre, it looked like the breakaway stage win was on, with Australia’s Clarke the favourite, but neither man found the legs for a final push and the peloton swept past them with the finish line in sight.
It was Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) who crossed the line first in a chaotic sprint, adding a Giro stage win to Tour de France and Vuelta a España stage victories and completing his “Pederslam”. The Danish rider has also won a world road race title, and joins Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan in an exclusive club of active riders with all four wins.
Pedersen held off Jonathan Milan, Pascal Ackermann, Kaden Groves and Fernando Gaviria to take victory. After going down in the bunch sprint on Wednesday’s fifth stage, Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) crashed again and crossed the line a long way adrift.
“I’m pretty happy, it’s what we came for,” said Pedersen. “It’s nice to have a victory now, it was a tough day for the team and it’s nice to pay them back with a victory. It was pretty close, it was not easy to catch them for a long time. They had a lead of two minutes and we had to use all the guys available, it wasn’t easy. With 300 metres to go we caught them. I feel really sorry for those guys.”
Clarke cut a disconsolate figure afterwards. “Devastating, it’s not nice to lose in that way,” he said. “I would prefer to get caught with 10km to go. You can’t win them all, but if you don’t try then you never know. We needed 10, 15 more seconds. It’s just the way it was.”
There was no change in the overall standings, with Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) staying in the overall lead, 28 seconds clear of Remco Evenepoel. Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) suffered a late mechanical problem but was able to rejoin the main group in time.
Friday’s stage nine is a 218km route from Capua with an uphill finish at Gran Sasso d’Italia.
