
Ineos Grenadiers bounced back in great style on stage 5 of Giro d'Italia yesterday with the most unlikely win in the mountains via Filippo Ganna.
The 82kg world TT champion got clear in the early breakaway which was swelled later in the stage when Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and neo-pro Einer Rubio (Movistar) got across to the move.
However, De Gendt and Rubio became involved in a dispute on the road, with De Gendt complaining after the stage that Rubio sat on him for long periods and even refused to work when the duo caught the breakaway.
And when the front group was whittled down to De Gendt, Rubio and Ganna in the closing stages that dispute played in the hands of the Ineos Grenadiers rider.
He rode off the front with just under 17km to go to the finish in Camigliatello Silano, with De Gendt and Rubio looking at each other and refusing to close the gap to him. Ganna looked like he could hardly believe he was being allowed to ride away.
While much of the remainder of the 225km stage was uphill - on the cat 1 Valico di Montescuro - and Ganna is not supposed to be a climber, once he got clear he went for it; opening a huge gap on the two chasers and gaining time on the remains of the peloton.
While De Gendt and Rubio were caught by the small peloton, Ganna survived and won the stage by 34 seconds.
It was his second stage win in his first Grand Tour and was also his first ever pro win in a road race as he usually prevails in TTs. The win also came just two days after his team lost its leader Geraint Thomas, who was forced out of the race after a stage 3 crash.
Patrick Konrad (Bora-hansgrohe) yesterday won the sprint for 2nd place from race leader João Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep).
Because stage 3 winner Jonathan Caicedo (EF Pro Cycling) was dropped yesterday, he slipped down the general classification having been just two seconds down on the race leader at the start of the stage, sitting in 2nd place overall.
Almeida, who only turned 22-years-old in August, now leads the race by 43 seconds from Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-McLaren), with Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) in 3rd at 48 seconds.




