Stage 5 Filled With Drama As Evenepoel Crashes Twice, Cavendish Slides Across Finish, Groves Wins
A day of rain-soaked carnage on the Giro d’Italia saw Remco Evenepoel hit the deck twice and Britain’s Mark Cavendish acrobatically skid over the line on his torso in the wake of Stage 5 winner Kaden Groves. The Australian beat Jonathan Milan and Mads Pedersen in a messy sprint as Norway’s Andreas Leknessund battled to retain the pink jersey.
As the incessant rain lashed down from start to finish in Campania, it was anything but dog days for Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) in Stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia. The world champion crashed twice – once after a stray dog ran in front of the peloton and again just 2.5km from the finish – as the terrible conditions took their toll on the peloton.
Another crash 7km from the finish sparked a frantic chase back into contention for the pink jersey Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM), Evenepoel’s big rival Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and Portugal’s Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates). The subsequent Evenepoel crash further whittled down the pack ahead of a chaotic reduced bunch sprint in the coastal town of Salerno.
Australia’s Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took the spoils ahead of Italy’s Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) and Denmark’s Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo). But the finish was marred by yet another dramatic crash after Britain’s Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) had his front wheel clipped by the rear wheel of Italy’s Alberto Dainese (Team DSM) just before the finish.
The British champion had only just relaunched his sprint after being clipped from behind when Dainese appeared to veer across the road – the sudden contact sending the veteran sprinter sprawling over the line for a fifth place (upgraded to fourth) he will never forget. In the subsequent melee, Filippo Fiorelli (Green Project-Bardiani) was forced into the barriers at speed, while another Italian, Andrea Vendrame (AG2R Citroen), ran out of road and was brought down so badly he required medical attention.
The finish zone resembled a warzone as riders crossed the lines in drips and drabs – many bloodied and bruised – following the series of spills, the first of which occurring when Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) crashed on the final bend onto the beach front 7km from the finish.
Although their GC riders were on the right side of the split, Ineos Grenadiers and Soudal Quick-Step sportingly refused to drive the pace on the long, straight run into the finish to allow Slovenia’s Roglic – forced to ride team-mate Koen Bouwman’s bike – and the pink jersey of Leknessund back into the fold.
No sooner had they returned than Evenepoel kissed the tarmac for the second time with a high-speed crash that – luckily for him – occurred just within the 3km rule. Swathes of riders came down across the road – including Roglic, again – in a hellish ripple effect, the Belgian eventually remounting to soft-pedal home.
More drama was to come, however, with the eye-catching Cavendish crash taking the gloss off a maiden victory on the Giro for 24-year-old Groves, who held off both Stage 2 winner Milan and the Danish powerhouse Pedersen to deliver the goods after two previous third-place finishes.
Groves’s win brought the Alpecin-Deceuninck sprinter to within one point of Milan’s lead in the maglia ciclamino points classification. Once all the calculations were made, Leknessund, meanwhile, retained his 28-second lead over Evenepoel in the general classification.
As the dust settled on a sorry day in southern Italy, Almeida – who battled to save his fourth place on GC – perhaps summed the sodden stage up best with his assertion that, “Today was four hours of racing and I lost four years of my life.”
HOW GROVES REIGNED SUPREME ON STAGE PEPPERED WITH CRASHES
As the rain began its incessant pounding down on the peloton as it left Atripalda, a move from the gun saw five riders go clear following an initial dig from the Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), on the attack in pursuit of the KOM points to secure another day in blue.
The breakaway was just minutes old when it almost found itself scuppered when Italians Martin Marcellusi (Green Project-Bardiani) and Stefano Gandin (Team Corratec-Selle Italia) hit the deck after losing their front wheels on a slippery roundabout.
Pinot showed expert bike-handling and reaction skills to avoid their sprawling bodies before pushing on with Italy’s Samuele Zoccarato (Green Project-Bardiani) and compatriot Thomas Champion (Cofidis). The trio were soon joined by Gandin but not Marcellusi, who had dropped back to the peloton.
After taking maximum points over the early climb of the Cat.3 Passo Sella, Pinot bid his fellow escapees farewell as he sunk back into the pack, his early job for the day done.
If the early crash was a sign of the potential hazards in such sodden conditions, then another far larger flashpoint soon occurred when world champion Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) found himself in a heap on the side of the road with 150km remaining. The former race leader was taken out after an unleashed dog jumped in front of team-mate Davide Ballerini, whose crash had a knock-on effect for those around him.
Evenepoel took a long time to get back on his bike but the 23-year-old was soon surrounded by his team-mates and riding back towards the peloton – giving the TV cameras the thumbs-up to show that he was okay.
As a result of the easing of tempo in the pack following the favourite’s fall, the leading trio saw their lead stretch over the three-minute mark as the rain continued to lash down over Campania.
Gandin won the first intermediate sprint – just as he did when last in the breakaway in Stage 2 – before Zoccarato crested the summit of the second Cat.3 climb in Oliveto Citro ahead of Champion. When the peloton passed over the climb just over one minute behind, Pinot edged to take the remaining point on offer to consolidate his lead in the blue jersey standings.
The advantage of the trio crept back up on the tiered descent as the race passed through fog and mist, which added yet another meteorological curveball to an already testing day in the saddle. But with the final 40km of the race playing out on flat roads towards Salerno, there was never any chance of this move going the distance.
After Gandin beat Champion to the second intermediate sprint at Battipaglia, the pair sat up and Zoccarato pressed on alone in a bid to defy the peloton. The Italian survived until around 6km to go, swept up by the front of the peloton that had emerged from the turn onto the coastal road unscathed from the fallout of Gaviria’s crash.
Roglic, Almeida and Leknessund were among the big-name riders who were not so lucky – the Slovenian needing to swap bikes with team-mate Bouwman and the other two requiring the help of several team-mates to bridge back into contention on the long run towards the finish.
Evenepoel’s second crash 2.5km from the finish proved another obstacle to Roglic and caused multiple riders to hit the deck all across the road. Given what had already happened, it was perhaps only fitting that the bunch sprint was so chaotic.
Groves proved the strongest – denying both Milan and Pedersen despite the earlier withdrawal of his Alpecin-Deceuninck lead-out man Ramon Sinkeldam, who did not start Wednesday’s stage because of illness.
Dainese was later stripped of his fourth place and demoted to 34th following his role in the incident that proved so costly for Cavendish, Fiorelli and Vendrame.
Leknessund, meanwhile, lives to fight another day in pink, the Norwegian youngster keeping his cool when put under pressure in the fraught final kilometres. He leads Evenepoel – who crossed the line over four minutes down, safe in the knowledge that his losses could be wiped out – by 28 seconds.
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— Giro d’Italia (@giroditalia) May 10, 2023
Time will tell what effect Evenepoel’s two crashes will have on the Belgian’s chances of adding a Giro title to the Vuelta crown he won last September. There were no other notable changes with the exception of Australia’s Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) who dropped out of the top 10 after stopping to help pace team-mate Almeida back into contention. Vine is now in 21st place at 2’47”.
The Giro d’Italia continues on Thursday with the 162km Stage 6, a lumpy loop south of Naples and around Mount Vesuvius that includes two categorised climbs ahead of another flat finish. More rain is forecast…
