Fredrik Dversnes won the 15th stage of the Giro d\u2019Italia on Sunday, taking the honours from a breakaway on a day in which the final lap of Milan was neutralised due to rider complaints about the race conditions.<\/p>\n
Norwegian Dversnes crossed the line in front of three Italians \u2013 Mirco Maestri, Martin Marcellusi and Mattia Bais \u2013 as a widely expected bunch sprint failed to materialise.<\/p>\n
Jonas Vingegaard stayed in pink as the overall race leader, two minutes and 26 seconds ahead of Afonso Eul\u00e1lio after a surprising end to a flat 157km from Voghera to Milan, which looked tailor-made for the sprinters.<\/p>\n
But race organisers were left with the embarrassing decision to first neutralise the final five kilometres for the general classification after Vingegaard was among the riders to complain to race commissioners about the road furniture. That ruling was then extended to the entire fourth and final lap around Milan, although the stage and eventual sprint would still be valid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all thought that the circuit was dangerous. I don\u2019t want to go into details but when we got into the circuit we spoke to the race\u2019s head commissioner and they made a decision,\u201d Vingegaard told RAI after the race. \u201cAs riders we have to be happy that they listened to us and I want to thank the organisers. Obviously we spoke within the peloton. If it had just been me who felt this way it would have been different. But I could tell that everyone was of the same idea, so I think I had a bit of responsibility on my shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonas Vingegaard in the pink on the flat road to Milan. Photograph: Fabio Ferrari\/LaPresse\/AP<\/p>\n
It was the biggest win of his career for Dversnes, who rides for Uno-X Mobility and whose last victory was in the fourth stage of the Arctic Race of Norway in August. \u201cI knew I had good opportunities because I\u2019m pretty good at going in breaks, so this was my big shot,\u201d Dversnes said after the race. \u201cWith 5km to go, of course you start believing, but you have to think about what to do and what\u2019s important and not about what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
The peloton will have a chance to rest their legs on Monday before the start of the brutal third and final week, which will decide the destination of the pink jersey. On Tuesday, the first of a series of decisive mountain stages will see the riders move to Switzerland to take on 113km of punishing terrain between Bellinzona and Cari.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fredrik Dversnes won the 15th stage of the Giro d\u2019Italia on Sunday, taking the honours from a breakaway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-692026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}