Jonas Vingegaard Lights up Giro d’Italia but Silva Seizes Stage

Jonas Vingegaard and two other breakaway companions threw away a stage winning opportunity on stage 2 of the Giro d’Italia on Saturday.

The trio was denied by the peloton and by the Uruguayan rider Thomas Silva after they played cat and mouse in the finale.

Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) rocketed clear on the Lyaskovets Monastery Pass with around 12km to go. He was joined after the summit by Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Intermarché) but cagey racing allowed first Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and then the peloton itself to get across to the leaders.

Silva looked in clear shock crossing the line, sprinting in ahead of Florian Stork (Tudor Pro Cycling), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and 31 others. It is the first Grand Tour stage win by an Uruguayan rider.

The bunch was reduced by the hilly finale but also by a huge crash with 23km to go affecting two dozen riders. Riders slid out on a damp curve with Jay Vine and Marc Soler unfortunately leaving the race and UAE Emirates-XRG teammate Adam Yates also being affected and losing a lot of time.

Read more on the fallout of the crash here

Other big names to fall included Corbin Strong (NSN Cycling Team), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) and Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek). Buitrago abandoned and Gee-West would eventually lose slightly more than a minute.

The race was neutralized for several kilometers but restarted again, enabling Thomas Silva to take the stage and to inherit the race lead from the dropped stage one winner Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep).

As race interviewers noted, his win comes 60 years after Juan José Timón became the first Uruguayan to compete in Italy. Now Silva has the famous Maglia Rosa.

“It’s something incredible, isn’t it?” he smiled. “Something historic, as you say, for the country. Personally, it’s the ultimate. Honestly, I came to the Giro d’Italia thinking about fighting for a stage win, and if the stage two win happened, I could wear the pink jersey. I’m speechless.”

A more selective day than expected

Stage 2 of the Giro d’Italia was more testing that the opening day, making it uncertain if Paul Magnier could defend the pink jersey. Immediately after the start king of the Mountains leader Diego Pablo Sevilla and Mirco Maestri went clear from the drop of the flag.

The Polti VisitMalta duo were given plenty of leeway and were already over five minutes clear 20km into the stage.

Back in the peloton the Lidl-Trek team were wearing black armbands in memory of the Belgian Wouter Weylandt, who died in a crash at the Giro exactly 15 years ago. He was part of the team’s previous incarnation, Leopard Trek, and passed away after falling on a downhill.

NSN Cycling was doing much of the riding at the front of the peloton to prevent the leading duo from getting to far ahead, with Ryan Mullen in particular a huge amount of work.

Sevilla led Maestri through the intermediate sprint in Sliven, while 4:18 later race leader Paul Magnier won the gallop for third. Sevilla led over the Byala Pass, adding nine points to his lead in the KOM competition, and was also first to the top of the nearby Vratnik Pass.

Mullen slashed the break’s lead to 1:44 with 41km left and then UAE Emirates-XRG and Netcompany-Ineos hit the front to reel in the two leaders with 27km remaining.

Pileup affects key riders

Chaos broke out four kilometers later when a high-speed crash took down at least 20 riders.

Those involved included Jay Vine, Marc Soler and Adam Yates (UAE Emirates-XRG), Corbin Strong (NSN Cycling Team), Santiago Buitrago XRG), Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek), with Vine and Soler abandoning. The race was neutralized with 20km to go but restarted two 2km later, with Egan Bernal (Netcompany-Ineos) winning the Red Bull sprint and taking a six second time bonus.

Visma-Lease a Bike drove the pace on the Lyaskovets Monastery Pass climb inside 12.5km to go. Vingegaard surged there and was joined after the summit by Pellizzari and Van Eetvelt (Lotto Intermarché). They looked set to dispute the stage win but started playing cagey, allowing Jan Christen (UAE Emirates-XRG) to leap across with 1km to go.

The bunch then rejoined closer to the line, with Silva scooping the biggest victory of his career and, with it, the lead of one of the biggest races in the sport.

“The truth is that during the last 10 km I had a lot of confidence, but I had to stay calm, stay calm, trust my teammates,” he said. “Scaroni trusted me the whole time when he saw me in that group. He did a magnificent job at the end to close out those four ahead and leave me here to launch my sprint.

“The tactic was to stay calm and trust, and luckily it worked out.”

Giro d’Italia stage 2 results: