Oldani trumps Leemreize and Rota and wins in Genoa, Kelderman not concerned with classification | giro

It was clear from the start that many riders had their sights set on a place in the leading group. It rained attacks, but it took a long time before a flight was actually formed. When this was successful, it turned out that the Netherlands was well represented. Van der Poel, Mollema, Kelderman, Leemreize, Riesebeek and Eenkhoorn were all part of a leading group of more than 20 riders.

This leading group was allowed to go ahead by the peloton and soon made a gap of more than five minutes. The escapees stayed together for a long time, but on the penultimate climb Rota, Oldani and Leemreize went on an adventure.

The trio managed to cut a gap of a minute, because the group behind it fell silent. On the last serious climb of the day, a group of four strong climbers started to chase. These were Kelderman, Mollema, Hamilton and Buitrago. Van der Poel could not follow the pace of this group.

However, the group of four could not keep up with the pace of the three leaders. Leemreize, Oldani and Rota even managed to widen the gap and so it became clear that the winner of the stage would come from this group. In the end Oldani was the fastest in the sprint. Leemreize tried again with a lunge, but the Dutchman didn’t make a big hole.

It was nevertheless a successful stage for Wilco Kelderman. The Dutchman from Bora-Hansgrohe made up for a good part of his gap with the classification men and may be thinking carefully about a top-10 listing again. The peloton had passed the early break in more than eight minutes.

Oldani was the fastest of the three leaders on paper, but he himself admits that it was far from an easy race: „It was certainly not easy. I knew that my friend Rota was also fast and it was clear that the other boy (Gijs Leemreize) wanted to anticipate. It was difficult to manage, but in the end I did it.”

Alpecin-Fenix ​​was, in contrast to previous stages, with a lot of men in the front today. “The presence of Van der Poel in the leading group was crucial. We knew that if we were in the break with more than one person, everyone would start looking at Mathieu. That offers opportunities for the other rider, so we did that well today. We were the only team with three men in the leading group,” said the winner of the day.

Gijs Leemreize was third today and had already taken this into account during the race: „It was a beautiful day, but I knew that with my sprint it would be difficult to drive to the finish with these two. It was just spinning to the finish and third was the highest achievable. I couldn’t really play poker.”

At the end, Leemreize made another attempt. “I did try twice, but well… Just go by feel and hope they look at each other, but they didn’t. I thought: go 1 kilometer, if they doubt, you’re gone. But it wasn’t there. It’s been a nice Giro so far,” said the Dutchman from Jumbo-Visma.

Kelderman also hoped for daily success. According to the Dutch cyclist, the fact that a victory was not forthcoming was partly due to the fact that the leading group consisted of too many riders. ,,We were ahead with too many riders. Alpecin-Fenix ​​and Intermarché-Wanty played well in the leading group,” said Kelderman. ,,I wanted to wait until the last long climb and pull out all the stops. I did and I managed to get away, but those three guys were already too far away and unfortunately we couldn’t get closer.”

Kelderman rose ten places in the standings and is now thirteenth, 2.51 minutes behind Spanish leader Juan Pedro López. “I’m not concerned with that classification,” Kelderman told Eurosport. ,,3 minutes is still a lot of time and besides, I’m just not good enough to compete with the best climbers. With Jai Hindley and Emanuel Buchmann we still have two very strong riders in the top ten. I’m happy with how it went today. That gives me confidence and hopefully I can still win a stage here. I also want to assist my teammates for the classification.”

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