Ballerini benefits from more Giro crash chaos as top sprinters go down on the Naples cobbles

Davide Ballerini has won stage six of the Giro d'Italia. The Italian was the quickest in Naples, where race organisers RCS had drawn up a dangerous finale. Dylan Groenewegen came down in the best position anyone could have asked for — as did Tobias Lund Andresen and Jonathan Milan, among others.

Naples was hosting a Giro stage for the fifth year running, with the finish going to the sprinters in each of the past three editions. Mads Pedersen won here in 2023, Olav Kooij in 2024 and Kaden Groves last year. The first two are not racing this year; the third went home after crashing on day one.

The riders rolled out at 14:00 — though "rolled out" may be generous, with little appetite for an early breakaway and the opening phase looking more like an extended neutralisation. After the brutal cold, wet, long day of Wednesday, there was every excuse to take it gently and have a chat in the bunch.

Peace was briefly shattered by a crash involving four riders, including sprint favourite Jonathan Milan. His Lidl-Trek teammate Matteo Sobrero and the Uno-X Mobility duo of Andreas Leknessund and Johannes Kulset also went down — though all were able to continue without serious consequences.

Alpecin-Premier Tech had no interest in a parade stage: Edward Planckaert and Luca Vergallito broke clear together to form the day's leading duo. Shortly afterwards came a reaction from Bardiani CSF and Polti VisitMalta, with Mattia Bais, Manuele Tarozzi and Martin Marcellusi closing the gap — but the leash was kept tight and Planckaert read the writing on the wall, drifting back to the bunch.

Shortly afterwards, another crash — this time Nico Denz of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, who went down on a slippery corner but recovered and continued. The rain that had been so threatening turned out lighter and shorter than forecast, much to the relief of riders in southern Italy.

The final run into Naples was raced in dry conditions. At 25 kilometres from the line, Alec Segaert of Bahrain Victorious injected some pace at the front — but Visma | Lease a Bike had collectively tucked in at the back of the peloton, keeping out of danger and saving legs for Friday's crucial day towards Blockhaus.

Further forward, space opened up on the Autostrada section for the sprint teams to build their lead-out trains. At 6.8 kilometres, a road narrowing had been flagged by every team as a critical pinch point — but in the end it came and went without incident.

In the run-in, Unibet Rose Rockets were well placed at the front, with the other sprint teams poised. Everyone had one thing in their mind: the final U-turn, just a few hundred metres from the line. "You need to be in the top five going into that corner" had been the universal pre-race message.

Groenewegen's lead-out was superbly positioned, but Soudal Quick-Step and Lidl-Trek came alongside in the final two kilometres — without getting past, thanks to excellent work from Matyas Kopecky and Elmar Reinders. Then the inevitable happened: Groenewegen, Reinders, Lund Andresen and Milan all went down. Ballerini capitalised and held off Stuyven to win.