Andre Griepel (Lotto-Soudal) won the stage 5 Giro d’Italia sprint into Benevento ahead of Arnaud Demare (FDJ) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bardiani-CSF). Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) retained the pink leader’s jersey.
For Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka it would not be the best of days as our African Team lost Omar Fraile (pictured below), when the Basque rider had to abandon after 100km’s of today’s stage. Fraile crashed heavily during yesterday’s stage but was still able to finish. Overnight though, the young climber picked up a fever and was not able to keep any fluid down. He started today’s stage with the hope of nursing through to the finish but a really fast start meant this would not be possible and unfortunately he had no choice but to stop at the feedzone.
The stage went on though and it was 4 riders who animated the 230km stage today by making the break of the day. While the stage was by no means flat, the sprinters teams were intent on bringing the race back together for a bunch sprint. This scenario would eventually materialize as with 10km to go, the race was all together.
Once again our African Team was focused on delivering Kristian Sbaragli to the sprint as the final 1.5km suited our young Italian, being a slightly uphill pave surface. Sbaragli was well positioned going onto the pave but with no team really taking control of the leadout there was a slight lull in the pace which saw a number of riders swamp to the front before a left hand turn with 1km to go. Sbaragli was boxed in, lost position quickly and then there was also a crash in the corner.
The sprint then opened up and Sbaragli found himself having to come from around position 20 when before the final corner he was 8th wheel. In the end our Italian had to settle for 11th place on the stage.
Jean-Pierre Heynderickx – Sport Director