Battaglin bursts through for stage win as Froome finishes in the pack
● Dennis retains pink jersey while British rider Yates stays in third place
Enrico Battaglin surged ahead at the perfect moment to win the fifth stage of the Giro d’italia yesterday as Chris Froome and most of the other general classification favourites finished in the main pack.
Rohan Dennis held on to the overall leader’s pink jersey with a one-second lead over defending champion Tom Dumoulin, with fourtime Tour de France winner Froome 55 seconds back in 19th place.
Giovanni Visconti, a Sicilian looking to impress in front of his home fans, led coming around the final turn with 200 metres to go before Battaglin accelerated to take his third career Giro stage victory.
Battaglin, who rides for Team Lottonl-jumbo, had finished third in a slightly tougher stage on Tuesday.
“The finish was a bit different to yesterday. Yesterday was really a powerful sprint on a really steep climb,” said Battaglin, who also won Giro stages in 2013 and 2014.
“Today was a steep climb but at two kilometres to go, and I had a little bit of time to rest and recover and do a really good sprint.”
Visconti crossed second and Jose Goncalves of Portugal finished third, both with the same time as Battaglin.
Battaglin clocked slightly more than four hours over the 153 kilometre leg from Agrigento to Santa Ninfa in southwestern Sicily.
The start of the stage was delayed for 15 minutes due to an accident on the racing route that left a motorcycle driver in a serious condition.
Simon Yates, the Briton who won the young rider classification at last year’s Tour de France, sits third overall, 17 seconds behind Australian Dennis, who claimed the lead after the second stage.
“It was a nice day on the bike, on quite a slow pace because of the headwind,” said Dennis, who rides for BMC. “I felt a bit of stress every now and then but I am glad to be in the maglia rosa. We’re only on day five, that means 16 days to go. Tomorrow will be another story with Etna. I’m looking forward to see how I’ll go up there.”
Stage six concludes with an arduous ascent up Mount Etna that should shake up the overall standings. Then the race heads over to mainland Italy and climbs up the peninsula to the defining legs in the Alps.
The only overall contender who struggled yesterday was Astana rider Miguel Angel Lopez, who misjudged a turn with six kilometres to go, rode straight off the road and fell into a patch of high grass. He finished 42 seconds behind.
Four riders – Ryan Mullen, Laurent Didier, Eugert Zhupa and Andrea Vendrame – were involved in an early breakaway. Vendrame, the last survivor of the breakaway, was caught by the main pack with three kilometres to go. While the first half of the stage was not very challenging, the second half included three fourthcategory climbs.
The final two kilometres were mostly uphill, including one demanding section at a gradient of 12 per cent.
The stage began near Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples archaeological site and concluded in the valley of Belice to commemorate the 50th anniversary of an earthquake that killed more than 200 people. Santa Ninfa was one of the hardest hit towns by the quake.