Giro d’Italia 2023: Disaster for breakaway as Mads Pedersen snatches Stage 6 win, Remco Evenepoel fights on

Updated 12/05/2023 at 09:09 GMT

What have the breakaway done? Simon Clarke and Alessandro De Marchi should have been sharing the top two spots on the podium – instead, they were left ruing a disastrous miscalculation that allowed the peloton to swoop through in the closing metres. Mads Pedersen was the main beneficiary as he completed the ‘Peder-Slam’ by ticking off a win at the one remaining Grand Tour on his glowing palmares.

Stage 6 highlights: Pedersen wins, Roglic and Thomas suffer late scares

This time a year ago, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) had not won a stage on a Grand Tour. On Thursday, the 27-year-old Dane was a stage winner in all three after completing the milestone in just 300 days. In so doing, Pedersen denied Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) the chance of achieving the same feat in what would have been a lengthier but no less sweet 3,915 days.

Australian veteran Clarke looked odds-on to contest the finish with Italy’s Alessandro De Marchi (Team Jayco-AlUla) after the duo defied the peloton on the twisting and breathtakingly beautiful roads of the Amalfi coast. But the last two surviving riders from an initial five-man break were swallowed up by the peloton with just 200 metres remaining as Pedersen triumphed on the streets of Napoli.

Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) opened up the sprint and seemed a safe bet to pick up his first win on the Giro in five years. But Pedersen used all his power to surge past Gaviria and complete the final piece of his Grand Tour jigsaw following stage victories last summer in the Tour de France and La Vuelta.

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The impressive Italian youngster Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) continued his fine debut Giro with second place ahead of Germany’s Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates), with the Australian Stage 5 winner Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) pipping a fading Gaviria for fourth.

"I'm pretty happy - it's what we came for and it's nice to have a victory now,” said Pedersen, whose win came after previous second- and third-placed finishes.

Pedersen continued: “It was a tough day for the team and it's nice to pay them back with a victory today. It was pretty close in the end. It was not easy to catch them for a long time and we only caught them with 300m to go. I feel sorry for those guys because they did really, really well - but I'm happy I took the win.

“I wanted to open a long sprint because we had to catch those guys - but lucky for me [Gaviria] did it before and I had someone in front to try to catch. He did a really strong sprint and it was not easy."

Late mechanicals on the flagstones of the narrow streets of Naples provided extra drama in the GC battle as Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) forced to fight back into contention after heart-in-mouth moments for both pink jersey contenders.

Roglic hit by mechanical on Stage 6

Norway’s Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) survived another day in the maglia rosa to retain his 28-second lead over Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) after the world champion enjoyed a less chaotic day in the rainbow bands and avoided a repeat of his two-crash nightmare from Wednesday.

Sunshine – and not rain – provided a wonderful backdrop to what was a spectacularly scenic loop around Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. And although Pedersen ended up making the headlines, the stage will be most remembered as the day two veteran breakaway specialists made an almighty hash of the endgame, coming tantalisingly close to pulling off the impossible but ending up with egg on their faces and their hearts broken.

Giro d'Italia Stage 6 recap – Pedersen wins as Roglic, Thomas hit with late drama

How De Marchi and Clarke were denied at the death

The start of the 162km Stage 6 from and to Napoli was delayed owing to numerous mechanicals and punctures in the neutral zone – the significance of which returning later on in the closing moments of a stage that came to the boil with a remarkable crescendo of drama.

Italy’s De Marchi (Team Jayco-AlUla) set out his stall early by going clear on the outskirts of Napoli. He was soon joined by compatriot Francesco Gavazzi (Eolo-Kometa) and then by three others in Frenchman Alexandre Delettre (Cofidis), Australia’s Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Britain’s Charlie Quarterman (Team Corratec-Selle Italia).

As the peloton sat up behind, another Italian, Alessandro Verre (Arkea-Samsic), embarked on a sorry quest to join the leaders – one which lasted the best part of two hours and never looked like reaching fruition.

Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Alessandro De Marchi (Team Jayco-AlUla) ride clear in Stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia 2023

Image credit: Getty Images

The gap had grown to over five minutes as the quartet came over the summit of the first of two categorised climbs, the Cat.2 Valico di Chiunza, the steep slopes of which distanced numerous riders, including the battered body of Mark Cavendish.

The British champion was clearly feeling the effect of his hefty crash on the home straight of Stage 5, and despite the help of three Astana-Qazaqstan team-mates, Cavendish never rejoined the peloton. It later emerged that he had hit the deck again in an apparent collision with Arne Marit (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) on his way to finishing more than 18 minutes down.

Meanwhile, back on the nose of the peloton, some strong pace-setting by Ineos Grenadiers saw the gap tumble to three minutes as the riders dropped down towards the stunning Amalfi coast. This forced the most experienced of the escapees – De Marchi and Clarke – to join forces on the second climb of the day, the Cat.3 Picco Sant’Angelo, in pursuit of a Giro stage win that had eluded them both in their long careers.

Once their three fellow escapees were caught by the pack, the leaders still had 2’30” over the peloton as they skirted the Bay of Naples and made their way back past Mount Vesuvius and towards the finish. The gap was still two minutes with 20km remaining despite the chase being led by Trek-Segafredo, UAE Team Emirates, Team DSM and Bahrain Victorious.

Thomas forced to fight back to peloton after chain slips off

Late mechanicals for Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) – who punctured with 16km remaining – and Thomas (Ineos Grendiers) – who dropped a chain with 12km to go – added extra zest to the finale and no doubt played into the hands of the leaders.

And with the gap still around a minute with 5km remaining, it looked like Clarke and De Marchi would contest the win. This still seemed to be the case entering the final kilometre with the pair holding onto a 30-second advantage. But as soon as they started looking over their shoulders, the doubt crept in – opening the door to a rampaging peloton and changing the script in a flash.

Pedersen was the main beneficiary of this re-write, the Dane’s accomplished win hopefully doing enough to ensure the expression ‘Peder-Slam’ is now confined to the history books. Formerly team-mates, De Marchi and Clarke rode as brothers – only to have their hopes cruelly dashed just metres from the finish.

'Peder-Slam!' – Mads wins in Naples as breakaway 'heroes' caught

A “devastated” Clarke was stoic in his assessment of the outcome. “It's not nice to lose that way – getting caught so close to the line,” he said. “I probably would have preferred to get caught with 10km to go than 200m but, yeah, you can't win them all, and if you don't try, you'll never know. Tomorrow's another day.

"At the end of the day, there is always going to be a moment when you have to decide to stop pulling. You can just pull all the way until 10m to go. We needed 10 or 15 more seconds. It was just the way it was."

The Giro d’Italia continues on Friday with the first mountaintop finish of the race – the 218km Stage 7 from Capua to the Gran Sasso d’Italia.

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