Lidl-Trek pushes hard and sees Pedersen sprint to his first pink jersey in a chaotic final

The 108th edition of the Giro d'Italia kicked off on Friday with a tricky stage. Between Durrës and Tirana, the organizers had planned a 160-kilometer route through Albania. A flat opening phase would take the riders to the climb to Gracen, which was quite long at 13.5 kilometers (with an average gradient of 5.2%). In the final, the climb to Surrel would be on the program twice, and with the summit 11 kilometers from the finish, a pretty thrilling finale was expected, with no shortage of possible scenarios.

Shortly after half past one local time, it was time for the official start of the Giro d'Italia. Several riders didn't feel like waiting around, as the day's breakaway had already formed. Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty) and Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis) represented the Low Countries in the breakaway, forming the leading group with Alessandro Verre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Alessandro Tonelli (Polti VisitMalta) and Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group - Bardiani). The peloton allowed them to build up a maximum lead of two minutes.

The breakaway riders did not get much more of a lead because Van der Hoorn was among them, and he is usually good at pulling off this kind of venture. Visma | Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek, and Alpecin-Deceuninck took responsibility for their leaders, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen, and Kaden Groves, and kept the leading group in check.

In the run-up to the day's first climb, the lead gradually reduced, but the breakaway riders started the Gracen climb with a little over a minute's advantage. Just before that, we saw Juan Ayuso, together with Max Poole (Picnic PostNL), standing still at the side of the road. The Spaniard from UAE Team Emirates-XRG had suffered a minor crash. Fortunately, Ayuso was able to continue quickly. Poole also rejoined the peloton quickly.

An attack by Tonelli in pursuit of mountain points meant the end of Van der Hoorn's adventure in the breakaway. The Dutchman let him go, after which Moniquet was the first to reach the top. The Belgian thus took 18 points for the mountain classification, ahead of Verre, Tonelli, and Tarozzi. During the descent, Verre accelerated and briefly took the lead. Not much later, Tarozzi, Moniquet, and Tonelli rejoined the Italian, giving us four leaders.

After Tonelli was the first to reach the very first Red Bull kilometer, the peloton quickly closed in on the leaders. With 43 kilometers to go, the point in the race where the riders had reached the local laps in Tirana, the gap was only about twenty seconds. At the start of the Surrel climb, it was all over for the leaders.

Lidl-Trek took firm control. The German-American team set a relentless pace and caused many riders to fall behind. After Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) had to let go, it was Olav Kooij's turn to drop out of the peloton. The pace was too high for the Dutchman, so it would not be the day for the Visma | Lease a Bike rider. The same was true for Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quick Step), who also fell behind.

At the top, where Lorenzo Fortunato, celebrating his birthday, had taken the maximum points for the mountain classification, it was a matter of assessing the damage for Lidl-Trek. However, the peloton was still quite large. The purer sprinters had been dropped, although Milan Fretin only managed to do so just before the top.

After Dylan van Baarle (Visma | Lease a Bike) took care of the descent, Lidl-Trek took the lead on the flat. We entered the second and final local lap with a somewhat thinned-out peloton. Lidl-Trek did the same on the second Surrel as on the first, setting a blistering pace. Not only were the favorites for the stage win, but the GC contenders were well positioned at the front.

Well before the summit, outsider Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) dropped back: the next rider, Lidl-Trek, had taken out of contention. The fast Max Kanter (XDS-Astana) and the equally fast Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) were also skilfully dropped, followed shortly afterward by Joshua Tarling (INEOS Grenadiers) as the next victim.

When Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) accelerated, Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers) were unable to keep up just before the summit. Van Aert did make it to the top in the same group but was a lot further back than before when he was still on Pedersen's wheel. Of the GC contenders, Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) had missed the move and had to chase hard after the climb to avoid losing time.

We eventually came out with about 40 riders, forming a fairly large group heading for the finish. We saw a crash during the descent, with Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) being the biggest victim. The Spaniard was visibly in pain and remained on the ground for long. It was the end of the Giro for the experienced Landa. Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was also involved, as was Geoffrey Bouchard, the Frenchman from Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, who was also visibly in pain.

The riders stormed towards the finish at top speed. There were a lot of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe riders at the front, while Pedersen and van Aert were also well positioned. Pedersen was brought into a perfect position and was the first to launch his sprint. The Dane saw no one coming alongside him and sprinted to the first pink leader's jersey. Van Aert was narrowly beaten and finished second.