The refugees matured into sprinters in the 5th stage of the Giro. Benjamin Thomas set up Cofidis’ first win of the year

The stage from Genoa to Lucca was surprisingly interesting and challenging and culminated in a dramatic fight between the four refugees and the weakened peloton. There was one long climb on the route, the Passo del Bracco, where the first four-man breakaway (Geschke, Askey, Bais, Tarozzi) ended and the Alpecin-Deceuninck team was to blame. The Belgians set a high pace in the moderate exit, snatched away some sprinters and eliminated the breakaway.

But it didn’t lead to anything, it was over 100 kilometers to the finish line, in the descent all the sprinters returned to the main group with the exception of Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Alpecin therefore stopped setting the pace. In the end, Jakobsen also returned to the front and racing started again only after the first speed premium in Ceparana, where Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was the fastest. Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost), Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ) and Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-Kometa) started behind the buffet and the peloton let them build a small lead.

The sprint teams underestimated the refugees

It seemed that the second escape was also doomed, but the sprint teams were quite tired after the demanding course of the first half of the stage, and with 30 kilometers to go, the escapees had a lead of 55 seconds. There was still plenty of time to do something about it, but the leading quartet were not too tired, they didn’t ride that long at the front, and they worked well together. And they didn’t slow down even in the climb of the 4th category Montemagno, from where they were already descending downwind to Lucca in Tuscany.

Lidl-Trek drove to the front of the peloton and tried to convince the other sprint teams to join the chase. They didn’t really want to at first, but they had no choice, because the loss was not decreasing fast enough. Josef Černý (Soudal Quick-Step) alternated at the top of the peloton with other competitors, the riders of Jayco AlUla, Lidla, Visma-Lease and Bike joined in, but everything was in vain.

The group of refugees didn’t slow down even when Pietrobon stopped taking turns. The Italian wanted to save as much strength as possible so that he could attack at the end, because he knew that he had no chance against his opponents in the sprint. Valgren, Thomas and Paleni were not thrown off, they alternated regularly and bravely resisted the peloton. They entered the last kilometer with a lead of 22 seconds and at that moment Pietrobon attacked and gained a solid lead.

Thomas used his experience from the track

Thomas kept his nerves in check, didn’t react to the start, even though Pietrobona noticed and let Paleni and Valgren give him a spurt. The five-time world champion on the track in madison (2x), omnium (2x) and points race knew very well how to behave tactically in such a distance and he also had sufficient speed. He won the very first victory of the year for Cofidis and his most valuable in his road career.

“It was a long breakaway, it felt a bit like a long team chase. It was hard to stay in front. I was really going full throttle at every change.” Thomas said after his unexpected triumph. Even he himself did not believe for a long time that he could win. “When we still had a 40-second lead with ten kilometers to go, I knew we could play with the peloton a bit. The wind was blowing at our back the whole time. And we were going at a speed of sixty kilometers per hour. It’s hard to catch up.”

“I thought that maybe today would be my day. When the fighter from Polti-Komet (Pietrobon, editor’s note) attacked, I told myself that I had to dare to lose and I wasn’t going to ride him. That turned out to be the right decision. Nobody didn’t think the refugees could make it today, but we still made it,” laughed the twenty-eight-year-old Frenchman.

Moreover, Italy is his second home, he lives here, he has an Italian partner, and therefore this victory has even more value. “I was lucky to know the final because I train here sometimes. It helped me in the corners and on the cobblestones. It’s always nice to win in Italy, but this is extra satisfying because it’s the first win for Cofidis in 2024.”

The peloton finished 11 seconds behind, with Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) fastest, ahead of Caleb Ewan (Jayco AlUla) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious). Milan at least increased the lead in the points competition, nothing changed in the other competitions, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates) continues in the pink jersey and Jan Hirt (Soudal Quick-Step) remained in eighth place.