Frenchman Arnaud Demare on Tuesday clinched a long-range, high-speed bunch sprint to win stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia on the cobbled streets of Modena.
The 27-year-old Groupama-FDJ sprinter timed his move to perfection as Italy’s Elia Viviani came second and early pacesetter Caleb Ewan finished fourth after a 60kph crash on the home straight took out German sprinter Pascal Ackermann.
Winner of two stages at this Giro and wearer of the sprint points jersey, Ackermann got back in the saddle and trundled across the line with the left side of his outfit in tatters, showing painful-looking grazes.
Ackermann still retained a slight advantage over Demare in the sprint points ranking and both riders intend, unlike many others, to finish the Giro in the hope of winning the cyclamen jersey.
For Demare, this was a first-ever Giro win, but the 27-year-old has been consistently in the mix on bunch sprints this year and in 2016 won the Milan-San Remo classic.
“We got it right today,” FDJ sports director Frederic Guesdon said after the race. “We had a good chat with him [Demare] on the rest day and got him in the right mood.”
Demare said that he had never let himself become downhearted watching others win.
“We came to the Giro for this. I really wanted a stage win and I got it in the end,” a delighted Demare said.
“I have been very good, but missed out for one reason or another,” he said. “The team never lost confidence in me either.”
“I had a good look at the final kilometer ahead of the start at Bologna [which is 20km away] and decided to take the wide side,” he added.
Italy’s Valerio Conti of UAE Team Emirates once again maintained his overall lead atop the general classification standings.
“I hope nothing bad happened to my teammate Simone Consonni in the crash,” Conti said at the winning post. “I have been well protected by my team the whole day. I thank them for giving me one more day in the maglia rosa.”
Yesterday’s 221km of racing was to be the final flat stage for the sprinters before the Giro heads to mountainous terrain.
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