Category: Mark Cavendish

Gaviria livid with his second place

Fernando Gaviria wasn’t happy after crossing the line in second place for UAE Team Emirates. It’s not clear if he was just angry with himself or at a perceived transgression there… Giacomo Nizzolo took third for Israel-Premier Tech while Davide Ballerini was fourth for Quick-Step. You have to feel for Biniam Girmay who found himself boxed in by the barriers and could only take fifth ahead of Phil Bauhaus of Bahrain Victorious.

No sight of Van der Poel at the finish after the Dutchman dropped out of contention early on – perhaps with a mechanical issue.

Victory for Arnaud Demare!

It’s the Frenchman’s first Grand Tour stage win in two years and he’s taken the win on Sicily just as he did two years ago in the 2020 Giro. Despite being distanced on the climb and then losing his leadout man Guarnieri, Demare does the business for Groupama-FDJ.

14:50 – Final kilometre

It’s still Cofidis on the front as they pass under the banner and then negotiate the tight left-hander ahead of the home straight – through which Groupama emerge on the front for Demare…

14:48 – Here come the sprint trains

3km to go: Team DSM, Alpecin-Fenix and Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert have send their soldiers to the front – although Van der Poel is holding back and not riding on the wheel of his teammate Dries De Bondt. I also forgot to mention Cees Bol of DSM, who have both the Dutchman and Dainese for this…

14:45 – Cofidis take it up

5km to go: The French team have come to the front for their sprinters Davide Cimolai and Simone Consonni – either that or they’re just keeping Guillaume Martin out of trouble. The pace is high as Sacha Modolo of Bardiani-CSF preps himself – he’s another outsider to watch. And now it’s Bora-Hansgrohe on a slight rise before the 3km mark – ensuring that Wilco Kelderman makes it through the threshold okay.

14:42 – Bora, Trek, UAE and Ineos on the front

8km to go: While we’re going to see a bumper sprint in Messina for now it’s a battle for protecting the GC men from the top teams, who have flocked to the front to keep their men out of trouble. That only adds to the tension and the general jostling for positioning.

14:37 – Tension mounts as the finish approaches

12km to go: Other names to consider for the finish are Edward Theuns of Trek-Segafredo and Magnus Cort of EF Education-EasyPost. Cofidis also have Consonni and Cimolai, who may fancy their chances. With the peloton’s two fastest sprinters out of the equation then anything could happen – although it’s hard to see beyond Biniam Girmay, Fernando Gaviria, Mathieu van der Poel or Arnaud Demare today… Phil Bauhaus, perhaps, too. And Giacomo Nizzolo, of course.

14:28 – The calm before the storm

20km to go: Now that those distanced riders are not coming back, things appear to have calmed down a touch ahead of what promises to be a thrilling finale. If you’re only just tuning in, a host of sprinters – most notably Cavendish, Ewan and Demare – were distanced on the only climb of the day ealier on. While Demare managed to battle back on the descent, the other two never got back. Here was the moment the elastic snapped for Ewan…

14:15 – Quick-Step and Lotto-Soudal sit up

30km to go: There will be no Cavendish and no Ewan in today’s sprint after the teams of both riders have decided to call it a day in their forlorn chase. Both sprinters were distanced on the earlier climb and it left them a metaphorical mountain to climb. Without Cav and Ewan today we will see a battle between the likes of Van der Poel, Girmay, Demare, Gaviria, Nizzolo, Bauhaus and Dainese. It’s worth adding that Demare has lost his lead-out man, Jacopo Guarnieri, who is riding in that gruppetto off the back.

14:07 – Ben Swift wins the intermediate sprint

40km to go: It’s not exactly driven by individual ambition but the British national champion zips clear to take the three bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint – probably in a bid to deny any of teammate Richard Carapaz’s rivals from taking the bonuses instead. Still, Joao Almeida nevertheless takes second place to pocket two seconds – enough to put him above Pello Bilbao and into provisional seventh on the virtual GC.

13:56 – Van der Poel on the back

45km to go: We’re not sure if he needed to drop back because of a mechanical or call of nature, but the maglia ciclamino is on the pack of the pack with around five Alpecin-Fenix teammates. It’s an odd one because it’s currently one of their own riders who is tapping out tempo on the front – well, he was until he got an order through the earpiece to back down. We have the intermediate sprint coming up and the time gaps have disappeared now from the graphics, which suggests that neither Cavendish nor Ewan will make it back now.

We’re hearing that Filippo Fiorelli of Bardiani-CSF-Faizane has withdrawn. That’s especially sad because it’s a Sicilian rider from Palermo, who has to get off his bike on his home roads.

13:45 – Demare up for it

55km to go: He won a similar stage two years ago but back then it was his Groupama team who did the damage on the climb. On this occasion, the Frenchman was one of the distanced sprinters – but he’s very much back in the fold and now has teammates on the front setting the tempo and stringing out the pack. They’re trying to make it as hard as possible for the likes of Cavendish and Ewan, who find themselves 2:00 and 3:50 back respectively.

13:38 – Israel-Premier Tech pull in the peloton

60km to go: That’s because their man Giacomo Nizzolo sniffs out an opportunity here following the fireworks on the climb. The Cavendish group is still 2:15 behind while Ewan and his Lotto Soudal teammates (which includes Thomas De Gendt, who has dropped back) is over four minutes in arrears.

13:30 – Wout Poels also off the back

67km to go: The Dutchman from Bahrain Victorious is riding in that Cavendish chase group, which is odd but there you go. They are 2:25 behind the breakaway, which has completed the descent and is about to be caught by the peloton. We now have a 30km run towards the intermediate sprint where crosswinds could be a factor ahead of the final flat run into the finish at Messina.

13:24 – Demare back in the pack, Cav still behind

72km to go: So, it was fake news that the Demare and Cavendish groups had joined forces: the Frenchman is now back in the peloton with his Groupama-FDJ teammates while the Quick-Step chase group is still 2:30 behind. It’s not over for the 36-year-old veteran but he has a big battle on his hands. For Caleb Ewan, though, it seems to be all over. He was still over four minutes back at the last check so it would be fanciful for the Aussie pocket-rocket to get back into contention ahead of the finish in Messina.

13:15 – Breakaway one man down

80km to go: Filippo Tagliani, who earlier won the intermediate sprint ahead of the climb, has been distanced by the break on this long descent. The remaining quartet of Bais, Meastri, Tonelli and Hanninen only have 15 seconds to play with over the Intermarche-led peloton. We’re hearing that the Demare and Cavendish groups have joined forces behind, but we’re still awaiting confirmation of the latest time gaps for those distanced riders.

13:05 – Girmay’s teammates set tempo on the descent

90km to go: Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert have a few riders on the front of the pack now as they look to take advantage of this situation for their Eritrean sprinter. The break only has 40 seconds now while the Ewan group is still a whopping 4:30 behind the peloton. Surely there’s no coming back for the Australian now?

13:00 – Curtains for Caleb?

Speaking before the stage, Caleb Ewan played down his fears of being dropped on today’s climb, stressing that there will be a lot of time afterwards to claw his way back into contention. Well, he went over the summit two minutes down on the Cavendish group and around four minutes down on the peloton, so he and the three Lotto Soudal teammates now with him will have to put their money where Ewan’s mouth is. Can they bring it back?

12:53 – Maestri takes KOM points over the top

98km to go: Mirco Maestri kicks clear of Mattia Bais to take the maximum 18 points on offer over the summit in the king of the mountains competition, which is currently being led by yesterday’s stage winner Lennard Kamna of Bora-Hansgrohe. That puts Maestri up to third place in the KOM standings, level on points with the maglia rosa Juanpe Lopez.

The peloton comes over the top around 50 seconds down on the leaders with the Cavendish group the best part of another three minutes back. The Ewan group is almost five minutes back. It’s going to be a fascinating second half to today’s stage. Can the likes of Cav, Ewan and Demare get back into contention or will the likes of Van der Poel, Gaviria, Nizzolo and Girmay battle it out for the win in Messina?

12:46 – World of pain for Caleb Ewan

102km to go: The Aussie pocket-rocket is two minutes behind the peloton now and he still only has one Lotto Soudal teammate with him so it seems they have given up on his chances today. What a terrible Giro he’s having after crashing in the Stage 1 finale and only coming eighth in Stage 3 after some poor positioning and a late launch.

The Cavendish group – six Quick-Step riders and one Movistar man (probably the chap who crashed) – is somewhere in between, perhaps one minute in arrears. There’s a lot of time for them to get the Manx Missile back into contention but they will be using up lots of energy. Davide Ballerini doesn’t appear to be there – that’s wise for he’s their Plan B for the sprint, and came third in the similar stage to this two years ago.

And Arnaud Demare is the latest rider to be distanced… He won that stage two years ago but the Groupama-FDJ man can’t keep up with the pace on this climb. As a result of the heightened tempo, the breakaway’s advantage is down to just 1:10.

12:43 – Cavendish and Ewan distanced!

And that’s exactly why Alpecin-Fenix are riding hard: Mark Cavendish, winner of Stage 3, is off the back with five of his Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl teammates. It’s all about damage limitation now – and it’s even worse for Caleb Ewan, who is further back and with only one Lotto Soudal teammate. Well, well, well… the fireworks have come.

12:37 – Alpecin-Fenix start to up the tempo

106km to go: Mathieu van der Poel and his Alpecin-Fenix teammates suddenly come to the front of the pack and increase the tempo in a bid to put some of the sprinters in difficulty. That’s nice to see. Remember, the team lost their main sprinter Jakub Mareczko yesterday and so they will be going all in for Van der Poel in the sprints – and the Dutchman will have a better chance of winning if some of his rivals get dropped or have to expend more energy before the finish. The time gap has tumbled to 2:15 accordingly.

As the camera pans out, we can see an incident in the pack on the right-hand side of the road – it looks like a Movistar rider has gone into the barrier and caused a bit of a hold-up behind him. Lucky he didn’t go over there because it’s quite a drop…

12:30 – Three minutes for the break

108km to go: A reminder of the five riders in today’s break: Mattia Bais and Filippo Tagliani (both Drone Hopper-Androni Giacattoli), Mirco Maestri (Eolo-Kometa), Alessandro Tonelli (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) and Jaakko Hanninen (Ag2R-Citroen). The gap is coming down as the riders go up.

12:21 – Peloton onto the day’s climb

113km to go: Both the break and the chasing pack is onto the Cat.2 Portella Mandrazzi, which is 19.6km long at a gentle 4%. When the Giro came over this climb two years ago in what was a near carbon-copy of today’s stage, Groupama-FDJ, Bora-Hansgrohe and Deceuninck-QuickStep ramped up the pace on this climb to distance Fernando Gaviria of UAE Team Emirates. Frenchman Demare went on to take the win ahead of Peter Sagan and Davide Ballerini in Villafranca Tirrena.

It will be interesting to see if any of the teams try out a similar tactic today. For instance, Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert may try to distance some of the pure sprinters in a bid to give their man Girmay a better chance in Messina…

12:16 – Biniam Girmay edges closer to maglia ciclamino

116km to go: The 22-year-old debutant from Eritrea kicks clear with Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert teammate Loic Vliegen and takes the points for sixth place in the sprint. That sees him close the gap by three points on Van der Poel, who he now trails by just four points ahead of today’s finish, where there are a further 50pts up for grabs. Such a talent, Girmay. He won Gent-Wevelgem in the spring and came very close to winning on his Giro debut last Friday. It’s surely a matter of when, not if, he wins a stage this year. Could today be the day?

12:12 – Tagliani pockets another €500

117km to go: It’s five intermediate sprint wins in five for the Italian Filippo Tagliani who took the honours twice in his previous two breakaways in Stages 1 and 3 on Hungarian soil. This time Jaakko Hanninen puts up a bit of a fight but the Drone Hopper rider’s kick is too fast and Tagliani eases to the win in Francavilla di Sicilia.

12:05 – The climbing begins…

122km to go: The road has been edging uphill for a while now – ever since the riders left the east coast and headed inland – and it will continue to do so until the intermediate sprint at Francavilla, shortly after which the day’s Cat.2 climb officially starts. The five escapees have seen their lead creep back up to 4:15.

11:50 – Big day for the maglia ciclamino

After relinquishing the pink jersey yesterday on Mount Etna, Mathieu van der Poel took over the maglia ciclamino that Biniam Girmay was keeping warm for him. There’s a big climb on the menu today but it comes too far away from the finish for it to make this a day for the GC favourites. As such, we should see a fast finish in Messina and the next chapter of the maglia ciclamino battle where there will be 50pts up for the taking for the winner.

The Dutchman currently leads with 62 points with Eritrea’s Girmay on 55 points, two ahead of Stage 3 winner Mark Cavendish. Frenchman Arnaud Demare, who won the points classification in 2020, is fourth on 44 points with Fernando Gaviria on 32 points. Other sprinters to throw into the ring for today’s finish are Giacomo Nizzolo, Alberto Dainese, Phil Bauhaus and Cees Bol. There’s also the Australian Caleb Ewan, who will be chomping at the bit to get his race back on track after crashing out of Friday’s opening sprint and then being badly positioned on Sunday.

Van der Poel, incidentally, has had to swap his pink Canyon for a fetching purple number for today’s stage…

11:35 – Gap comes down for quintet

141km to go: The combination of the spriners’ teams on the front of the peloton has seen the advantage of the break come down to 3:25. None of the break are debutants in this Giro but only two of the escapees have a pro win to their name: Maestri won Stage 2 of the Tour of China in 2019 (a 7.8km TT) while Tonelli won Stage 4 of the Tour of Croatia in 2018.

11:20 – Thomas De Gendt comes to the front

153km to go: With the gap growing to 4:30 the teams of the sprinters come to the front in a bid to restore some order to proceedings. It’s the Belgian veteran Thomas De Gendt who taps out tempo for Lotto Soudal, who will be hoping that Caleb Ewan gets back to winning ways today after his disappointment in Stages 1 and 3. Groupama-FDJ hava a rider there for Arnaud Demare while Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl have sent Pieter Serry to help out with the pacing to pave the way for Mark Cavendish.

After three days in Hungary without so much as a whiff of chlorine and then an opening stage in Sicily marked by a curious absence of swimming pools, the first sightings have now been made… although those pools definitely need some TLC.

11:05 – Gap grows as Lopez answers a call to nature

165km to go: As is his prerogative as the maglia rosa, Juanpe Lopez decides he needs a comfort break – and as Spain’s first pink jersey since Alberto Contador in 2015 pulls to the side of the road, so too does around a third of the peloton. This easing up and easing out, so to speak, allows the five escapees to stretch their lead above the three-minute mark as they continue their way along the east coast of Sicily.

10:55 – Five men in the break

168km to go: And there’s some familiar faces, too… Just as they did in Stages 1 and 3, Italian duo Mattia Bais and Filippo Tagliani (Drone Hopper-Androni Giacattoli) have both made the move. This time they’re joined by compatriots Mirco Maestri (Eolo-Kometa) and Alessandro Tonelli (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) as well as the Finn Jaakko Hanninen (Ag2R-Citroen). There’s little interest from the peloton and the gap has quickly grown to 1:35.

10:46 – Stage 5 is under way

174km to go: The flag is waved and this second stage in Sicily has now started. The attacks come thick and fast – and that’s no surprise. With that big 20km Cat.2 climb coming in the first half of the stage – plus potential crosswinds in the plains afterwards – there will certainly be scope for a breakaway going the distance, even if this should end up as a sprint in Messina…

Riders rolling out of Catania

The remaining 173 riders are currently soft-pedalling through the streets of Catania under the bright Sicilian sun. There were two DNFs yesterday: Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana-Qazaqstan) climbed off his bike with a hip injury while Italy’s Jakub Mareczko (Alpecin-Fenix) stugged to make the time cut owing to illness. His absence may give Mathieu van der Poel a chance to test his legs today should things come down to a sprint in Messina, the home town of Vincenzo Nibali.

Stage 5 route details and map

The 174km schlep is billed as ‘flat’ in the race manual, but a quick glance at the route profile proves that is a loose definition of the word.

A steady ride from Catania to Messina is punctuated by a Cat. 2 whopper up Portella Mandrazzi, with Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) hoping for a serene first day in pink after wrestling the leader’s jersey of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) on Mount Etna.

Can Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team drag Mark Cavendish over the summit, shield him to let him recharge, then explode and propel him to a second stage win? The Manx Missile will have just shy of 100km to recover after the summit – but how much effort will the team have expended to get him to a bunch sprint?

This is the last outing on the Sicilian shores, with the race belatedly heading to the Italian mainland on Thursday.

What happened yesterday?

On a day Miguel Angel Lopez withdrew, both Tom Dumoulin and Vincenzo Nibali cracked, Simon Yates had a scare, and Mathieu van der Poel conceded the maglia rosa, Lennard Kamna soared to a magnificent win as youngster Juan Pedro Lopez came of age on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, becoming the first Spaniard since Alberto Contador in 2015 to don the pink jersey.

Germany’s Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe) caught fellow escapee Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) inside the final three kilometres of the final 23km ascent before the duo shared out the spoils from a tough day in the saddle at the Rifugio Sapienza: for Kamna, a maiden Giro stage win and the blue king of the mountains jersey; for Lopez, the consolation of pink after his mistake on the final bend pretty much handed the win on a plate to his rival.

Lopez now leads a new-look general classification by 39 seconds over Kamna, with Estonia’s Rein Taaramae of Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert up to third place at 58 seconds after battling to third place on the first summit finish of the Giro.

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