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Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) claimed the first Grand Tour stage win of his career, sprinting to victory on stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia. However, it was a late crash with 3.8 kilometres to go near the front of the peloton that drew immediate reactions after the finish.
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Giro d'Italia 2023 Stage 2 Hub
Overall race leader Remco Evenepoel (Soudal QuickStep) retained the maglia rosa, and had a close-up view of the incident that led to the crash, an interaction between Evenepoel’s teammate Davide Ballerini and Australian sprinter Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
“I was actually just next to the cause of the crash, so I think everybody saw there were barriers on the left,” Evenepoel said. “The train of Alpecin came through, and I think it was Kaden Groves pushing Ballerini. Ballerini touched the wheel of [Josef] Cerny so he had to make a big manoeuvre to stay on the bike.
Alpecin-Deceuninck have defended Groves’ role in the fall, citing bad luck during a narrowing of the road as much as anything that caused the incident. The ripple effect of the disruption saw a crash occur on the other side of the road, sending a few riders to the deck and seeing the peloton fragment, with a number of riders missing out on the sprint finish and some general classification contenders cede time in the race for pink.
“So, it wasn’t a nice manoeuvre, I think that was the cause of the crash, so it’s just a pity that it happened in such a nice and easy stage,” said Evenepoel.
Groves looked like he might take full benefit from the resulting sprint, as he had the strongest lead-out from Alpecin-Deceuninck, but Milan emerged from the Australian's slipstream in the final 100 metres to take a comfortable victory.
David Dekker (Arkéa-Samsic) was a fast-finishing second after making his run from back in the pack, with Groves taking third on the line.
"I think I keep not believing it. It's something incredible. I'm without words," said Milan.
"I'm really happy, I cannot believe it. My first Giro, second stage. Yesterday, I did a nice time trial but I could never imagine that today was coming a victory. I cannot believe it. I am just happy."
The contentious crash occurred just outside the 3km to go banner, the point at which GC times are neutralised in the event of a crash. That meant that Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers), Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe), Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Easypost) and Australians Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) and Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) all lost 19 seconds.
Watch the , and the from Stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia, with everything available on SBS On Demand.
