Cycling
Tim Merlier immediately struck in the first bunch sprint in the Tour of Italy. The fast man from Soudal-Quick Step beat Jonathan Milan to the line after a power sprint. Pink jersey Tadej Pogacar animated the final with a late lunge, but was stranded within a few hectometers.
The prelude to stage three in the Tour of Italy was initially boring. The peloton clearly didn’t feel like it and limited themselves to a stroll towards Fossano. Until after the intermediate sprint a leading group suddenly emerged, including all sprinters, accompanied by a few servants. The peloton looked at each other, the sprinter teams naturally kept aloof.
Polti-Kometa and later also Movistar and Bahrain tried to resolve the situation, and of course not all sprinters at the front wanted to dig too deep into their arsenal, especially since the Intergiro was coming up. That was won by Jonathan Milan. The key question: would the sprinters continue after the Intergiro. The answer was positive. Alpecin-Deceuninck had four men in the leading group, including their sprinter Kaden Groves. They did not hesitate, but they were also no longer sitting still in the peloton.
The next key question: who would give up first, the bizarre leading group or the peloton? There was a split in the peloton and Cian Uijtdebroeks was surprised. And so we got a race on several fronts: the leading group versus the first peloton, the first peloton versus the rest. What followed was a nice intermezzo that ended at forty kilometers from the finish until all groups ran together and we again had a ‘normal’ race course.
Beautiful Pogacar
The final promised additional spectacle. After all, there was a short climb of one and a half kilometers at five percent. Too heavy for the real sprinters? And how would the majority among them have digested the efforts made earlier? A slope of one and a half kilometers in the full final would be a sharp judge for many sprinters. Honoré attacked, Pogacar followed and a little later Geraint Thomas also joined. Wouldn’t that be the case again? Lidl-Trek had to work hard to save the furniture. Only three hundred meters from the finish did Pogacar make the effort.
We had a pressing sprint, in which the Italian big man Jonathan Milan pushed hard. Tim Merlier had to come from far away, but with a few powerful strokes and a well-timed jump he beat Milan to the finish. Our compatriot will immediately score the first sprinter’s opportunity in this Giro. Milan and Biniam Girmay completed the podium. Jenthe Biermans finished fourth.
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