Giro d’Italia stage 1: Mathieu van der Poel claims chaotic sprint and first pink jersey

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) won the opening stage of the 2022 Giro d’Italia ahead of Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious).

While Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) looked to be the best positioned into the final dash for the line as he sat poised on Girmay’s wheel, the Lotto-Soudal sprinter came too close to the Eritrean, and a touch of wheels sent him to the ground with a few dozen meters to go.

With the win, Van der Poel put on the race-leader’s jersey in what is his Giro debut.

How it happened

From early in the stage, Mattia Bias and Filippo Tagliani (both Drone-Hopper) went off the front and gained a maximum advantage of nearly 11 minutes.

Over the rolling parcours, the chasing bunch shaved the margin to one minute at 30km to go.

Groupama-FDJ, Lotto-Soudal, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl, and Alepcin-Fenix did the work on the front to position their sprinters.

Noticeably absent from the front of the race was Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), who sat on the back of the main bunch for the majority of the day.

As the pace of chasers went up at 25km to go the margin between the two on the front and the peloton had been whittled to just 20 seconds.

The Drone-Hopper duo yo-yo’ed off the front with 20-30 seconds’ advantage through the successive 11km, and with 14km remaining, they were finally arrested by the main bunch.

No single team controlled the front at 10km to go, but EF Education-EasyPost, Lotto-Soudal, Groupama-FDJ, Tean DSM, and Eolo-Kometa took the entire width of the road, while Quick-Step tried to shoulder themselves in, and join the front of the race at 8km to go.

A crash at 6.5km to go brought down Jan Tratnik (Bahrain Victorious) and Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto-Soudal) as the pace continued to go up and teams battled for position ahead of the climb at 6km to go.

Chaotic finale

With riders hammering all-out into 5.8km to go for the start of the final climb — 5.6km at 4.2 percent average with a maximum 8 percent grade — a Lotto-Soudal train was at the lead position with Ewan in tow. But this did last long, as Alpecin-Fenix took over the front of the race into 4.2km left on the stage.

Behind, the race was no less chaotic, and David Ballerini (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) took a spill.

Lawrence Naesen (AG2R-Citroën) attacked at 3.5km to go and forced the chase, but his gamble was quickly countered by Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe), who bridged to the front and blew by Naesen through the red kite.

Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) came around to the front taking with him Ewan, who was on his wheels, trailed by Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious).

Formolo could not sustain the pace, and Girmay moved to good position. Seeing this, Ewan hopped onto the Intermarché rider’s wheels and trailed in his draft for a few meters.

Ewan got too close to Girmay as he tried to poison himself for the final few hundred meters, and a touch of wheels brought down the Australian.

Girmay’s sprint was strong, and committed, however, Van der Poel, who had not been at the front until the final 200 meters moved into position, and accelerated.

Van der Poel took a decisive sprint win, earning the ciclamino and the maglia rosa in his Giro debut.

“Tomorrow will be interesting to see if I can keep the lead in the time trial. It’ll be difficult, but I’ll try,” added the stage-winner.

What’s to come

The stage 2 time trial is just 9.2km, so no huge time gaps will open as a result of the test against the clock in Budapest.

While previous Giro d’Italia winner Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) has a world championship to his name in the time trial, the new keeper of the pink jersey Van der Poel has proven he can time trial in grand tours, too.