Ireland's Seth Dunwoody, centre, of Bahrain Victorious Development Team during the presentation of the teams competing in the Giro d'Italia Next Gen (Photo: Massimo Paolone)
Seth Dunwoody (Bahrain Victorious Development Team) said there were so many crashes on the opening stage of Giro d'Italia Next Gen (2.2U) he was glad to come through it in one piece. His lead-out man, however, was not so lucky.
"I was just glad to get through the day," Dunwoody told stickybottle, adding the team had started stage 1 "dreaming of the pink jersey and going for the win".
However, that didn't work out after a three-man breakaway got nine minutes and the biggest teams looked at each other, more or less refusing to blink first and take up the chase.
And though two of the breakaway men were caught, Kasper Haugland (Decathlon CMA CGM Development Team) hung on to win; after 130km on the attack, almost 60km of that solo.
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After having almost nine minutes at one point, and still enjoying a lead of six minutes with just 20km to go, he crossed the line just one second ahead of the bunch.
"We originally put a guy forward to try and control that break and other teams kinda sat back and let us work away," Dunwoody said.
"But we weren't going to do it all ourselves. So we backed off and then other teams were all looking at each other super cagey, what you'd expect on stage 1."
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Eventually, but only after a long period, a number of other teams took it up.
That included the Hagens Berman Jayco squad of David Gaffney and Adam Rafferty, along with the Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe Rookies team of GC favourite, and U23 world champion, Lorenzo Finn.
Lild Trek Future Racing, which has Liam O'Brien in its team, one of the GC favourites, also committed some resources to try and bring the massive gap back under control, as did NSN Development Team and UAE Team Emirates Gen Z.
But, in the end, it wasn't enough to ensure sprinters like Dunwoody were sprinting for victory and the first maglia rosa of the race.
"The breakaway definitely took their chances and in the last 5k by lead-out man (Valentin Hofer) crashed so I was down a man, which really made a difference in such a cagey sprint," he said, after eventually placing 12th on the stage.
"And seeing the numerous crashes in the last 5km, I was just glad to get across the line and be fighting for another day. My lead-out man is a bit battered up.
"So hopefully we can get him healed up and the pair of us can take on another one of these finishes because tomorrow (Monday) is gonna be maybe even worse."
The race continues today with a 154km stage from Tropea to Crotone, which looks like one for the sprinters like Dunwoody, who won a stage on the race last year. Rafferty also claimed a victory 12 months ago.
