Soudal Quick-Step talent stays ahead of the peloton in Giro Next Gen and takes the lead after a long breakaway

Schwarzbacher won the first leader's jersey on Sunday with an impressive time trial. The Slovakian from UAE Team Emirates Gen Z was ultimately just one second faster than his Visma | Lease a Bike Development rival Matisse van Kerckhove. On Monday, the first stage was on the program, in which the riders had to cover 146 kilometers between the start in Rho Fiera Milano and the finish in Cantù. The stage was not flat, but we couldn't really call it climbing either.

So, it was expected that it would be a sprint finish in the streets of Cantù. Schwarzbacher even told the organization beforehand that it was a stage "that would suit him better than the day before," so the competition had been warned. With Switzerland's Ilian Alexandre Barhoumi (Decathlon AG2R Development) and Belgium's Jonathan Vervenne (Soudal Quick-Step Devo Team), we saw two riders who wanted to prevent a sprint from the early breakaway. The peloton gave the pair a lead of about three minutes, with UAE taking the lead.

For most of the stage, nothing really changed: the two leaders were riding well, while behind them, the peloton was gradually closing in. Vervenne jumped away from his fellow breakaway rider on the short climb to Cucciago to take the full mountain points, but otherwise, it was a very eventless intermediate phase.

Barhoumi then gave up at the front, leaving Vervenne to surprise everyone. At one point, the young Belgian built up a three-minute lead, and it was clear that the peloton would have difficulty catching up with the Soudal Quick-Step rider. At the start of the final local lap, the gap was still two and a half minutes, giving Vervenne a glimmer of hope.

At the start of the final ten kilometers, the Belgian's lead was still just over a minute. The Visma | Lease a Bike development team worked hard at the front of the peloton, but Vervenne defended his lead very well. The gap was still a minute with three kilometers to go, but the final kilometer was tough. Nevertheless, Vervenne held on until the finish, beautifully completing a long day in the breakaway. He took the pink jersey from Schwarzbacher.