Sam Bennett sees biggest chance slip away at Giro d'Italia | Video

The Giro stage into Naples was one filled with drama and the final presented a very good chance for Ireland's Sam Bennett to win, though Kaden Groves took the honours (Photo by Gian Mattia D'Alberto-La Presse)

Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) was today presented with a great opportunity to take his first Giro d'Italia stage win since his breakthrough in 2018. But an unusual sprint by the Irishman saw him trailed off by the frontrunners in the final kick for the line.

Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) suffered no such problems, with the 26-year-old Australian making the most of the absence of Mads Pedersen (Lidl Trek) to kick early and decisively, winning stage 6 by a big margin into a sodden Naples.

While Bennett may yet win a stage on this race, as his early season form suggested he has the legs, today's finish was his biggest chance to date. Pedersen was missing from the gallop, while the Visma-Lease a Bike duo of Wout van Aert and Olav Kooij completely messed up their final efforts.

Advertisement

When the 227km of racing was done and dusted, Bennett crossed the line in 12th place - later upgraded to 11th - shaking his head in apparent frustration after looking well-placed only for things to go wrong at the last.

While his final lead-out man, Tord Gudmestad, pounced to the right, just as Groves opened his finishing kick in a similar fashion, Bennett opted to follow the clutch of riders to his left. In truth, he didn't muster much of a sprint, though it was unclear if that was down to his legs or some form of mechanical problem.

Today's stage was marred by a large crash with just over 70km remaining, and which called a halt to the racing for a time, before it restarted with about 55km to go. Because of the incident, and very slippery roads due to the rainfall, the race organisers decided the stage would not count towards the overall classification.

That resulted in a large number of riders sitting up and forming a second peloton to simply ride safely to the finish. When race leader, and three-time stage winner, Pedersen, joined that group in opting out for the day, the chances of the other fast men improved significantly.

At the finish - after the two-man breakaway of Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ) and Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché) was caught - Van Aert went for a flier far too early. He said afterwards he thought the finish line was closer. Behind him, Kooij was squeezed against the barriers taking him out of the gallop.

Related News

However, Groves was in top form and won with a powerful finishing effort, taking the victory from Milan Fretin (Cofidis) and Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step).

As the stage did not count towards the overall, Pedersen retains the race lead ahead of tomorrow's stage 7, which looks like one for the general classification men.

The conditions today, and the crash, meant a number of riders abandoned, including former winner Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). The Australian hit the deck very hard and suffered concussion, resulting in his hospitalisation for observation.

Ireland's Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost) finished down the field with team leader Richard Carapaz, who came down in the mass crash, with the whole team waiting for him.

Related News