Of all the GC contenders in the Giro d’Italia this year, Cian Uijtdebroeks’ race across the gravel of Tuscany on stage 6 was one of the most eventful. The 21-year-old Belgian had to handle both a puncture and then a stop to his forward progress when he put his foot on the ground due to a crash in front of him on one of the gravel segments.
The second incident was by far the more serious when teammate Atilla Valter went down, thankfully without major consequences, but the Visma-Lease a Bike rider, fourth overall, later earned fulsome praise from his team for not panicking in either circumstance.
Uijtdebroeks crossed the finish line on stage 6 safely in the main pack of favourites, with his fourth place overall and lead in the best young rider’s jersey still intact.
“It was pretty explosive at the end with [Romain] Bardet [Team dsm-firmenich PostNL] also attacking but I felt pretty good and Attila Valter brought me there in a perfect position, so it was OK,” Uijtdebroeks told Cyclingnews.
“Gravel stages are always tricky in a Grand Tour, particularly if you don’t have experience in those up to now, because it’s my second GT. So I’m happy I managed to get through it without time loss.”
The team sports director Marc Reef told Het Laatste Nieuws that his rider "never panicked”.
“That shows that he is really good. He also came back perfectly,” Reef said. He was not surprised by the lack of overall race action, pointing out that with so few gravel sections - just 11.6 kilometres compared to 35.2 in stage 11 of the 2021 Giro - “it wasn’t difficult enough”.
“The main tests of strength will be tomorrow [in the time trial] and the day after tomorrow [on Prati di Tivo.”
While by no means a poor rider against the clock, Uitjdebroeks himself has so far had a fairly unremarkable series of results in time trials, placing 35th in last year’s TT in the Vuelta a España, and with his best performance a sixth place behind teammate Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike) in last year’s Belgian Nationals.
As the young Belgian reminded reporters on Thursday, though, at his point in his career, time trialling remains a work in progress, much like all of this Giro given his considerable inexperience in Grand Tours. That said, so far Uijtdebroeks has proved more than capable of going beyond expectations and his performance on Friday’s 40.6-kilometre TT will be watched closely.
“Friday will be a good test,” the Belgian concluded. “But it’s still a project we’re working on. Let’s see if we’ve made a step compared to the past.”
Get unlimited access to all of our coverage of the Giro d'Italia- including journalists reporting, breaking news and analysis on the ground from every stage of the race as it happens and more. Find out more.
