NOS Cycling•today, 5:08 PM
Olav Kooij won the ninth stage of the Giro d’Italia on Sunday. The 22-year-old Dutchman was the fastest in a bunch sprint in Naples and took his first stage victory in a big tour.
“This was the step I was looking for,” Kooij said afterwards. “I was already looking forward to the first big tour. And after quite a few victories, this was what I dreamed of.”
The Visma-Lease a bike rider digested the climbs best at the end of the stage and still had enough in the tank for an impressive final sprint. He defeated the man in the purple points jersey Jonathan Milan and Juan Sebastián Molano. Danny van Poppel sprinted to fifth place. Tadej Pogacar keeps his pink jersey.
The Dutch cycling team Visma started this Tour of Italy with a completely different approach. In previous editions, the general classification and the pink jersey were always the goal. But due to injuries to Wout van Aert, Jonas Vingegaard and Wilco Kelderman, the battered formation of sports director Marc Reef focuses purely on stage wins in this round.
This has now been achieved with a victory by Kooij. It is a boost for the cycling team after the retirement of Robert Gesink and Christophe Laporte.
Kooij: “This is what we were looking for, a stage win. We had to fight for it. In a tough final. Thanks to the boys I got into position and was able to win.”
The ninth stage was 214 kilometers from Avezzano to Naples. After Saturday’s tough mountain stage, the peloton this time traveled over an almost flat course along the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Until the last 40 kilometers. Suddenly four vicious climbs appeared. In advance, eyes were mainly focused on Jonathan Milan, Olav Kooij and Kaden Groves; real sprinters, but light enough to handle the climbs.
The stage turned out to be a bit too tough for the sprinter par excellence. For example for Fabio Jakobsen. The Dutchman already let the peloton go on the first climb, the Monte de Procida, just like the Belgian sprinter Tim Merlier.
Classification rider Aleksey Lutsenko did not get on again this morning. The Kazakh rider is ill. He dropped out of the top ten of the general classification yesterday after a bad day in the mountains.
Italian duo
Those who were in good shape today: two Italians. Almost immediately after the start they thought: let’s go on an adventure. After their attack, Andrea Pietrobon and Mirco Maestri, teammates at Polti Kometa, turned out to be the only ones with this plan.
And so they rode together kilometer after kilometer together at the head of the race, at the peak with a 3.5 minute lead.
It was excellent advertising for the Italian cycling team of Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso. Hour after hour the red-white-green and the sponsor name came into view. And Pietrobon and Maestri also held their ground at the start of the hills.
With 27 kilometers left on the clock, it seemed that two other teammates, Julian Alaphilippe and Nicola Conci, ended the Italian flight with an attack. But the Italian duo simply rode along, after 190 kilometers of attack they joined a leading group of six.
Finally it was the race. Alaphilippe decided to attack again and got Ewen Costiou with him. In the peloton, the Lidl-Trek men tried to do everything they could to capture the escapees before their leader in the sprint: Jonathan Milan.
The roaring peloton
At the foot of the fourth climb, Alaphilippe, two-time world champion, looked back. Then he saw the roaring peloton. And so he decided, with 10 kilometers, to start again, on his own.
With an incredible acceleration from the peloton, Ecuadorian Jhonatan Narváez put an end to the Frenchman’s aspirations just before the top.
In the descent and in the city center, Narváez seemed to be able to stay out of the hands of the peloton.
Until even the man in the pink jersey started dragging Pogacar into the lead. The peloton overwhelmed escapee Narváez with 100 meters to go. Sprinter Milan seemed to take the win, but Kooij came over in the very last meters.
The day after tomorrow
Then the day after tomorrow, because tomorrow is a day of rest. The Giro continues from Pompeii on Tuesday. And then the climbing starts, with an uphill finish on the Bocca della Selva, a climb of no less than 17.9 kilometers with an average gradient of 5.6 percent.
