Jonathan Milan will have to wait to win at the Giro d\u2019Italia after the Italian sprint ace was caught up in a final-corner crash while compatriot Davide Ballerini stayed upright to win a sloppy stage 6.<\/p>\n
The skies opened up with showers just as the bunch roared into Naples on a technical, cobblestone finale that riders like Milan were complaining about.<\/p>\n
Showers turned the roads into an ice rink and several top sprinters crashed on a the final corner, including Dylan Groenewegen and Milan, who didn\u2019t crash, but saw his sprint disrupted, leaving the Italian winless so far in this Giro.<\/p>\n
Ballerini, who was supposed to be leading out a teammate Matteo Malucelli, found himself clear and fended off a surging Jasper Stuyven, whose tires were slipping on the wet cobbles in the final sprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t get why we have to try to find these complicated finishes,\u201d Milan said on the line. \u201cWe knew it could rain, and maybe it could be safer like some years ago when we could just go straight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tensions were already high following Wednesday\u2019s brutal rainy stage and with forecasts calling for showers, teams and riders pushed organizers to alter the finale coming into the narrow cobblestone streets of Naples.<\/p>\n
Rain only started to fall moments before the peloton arrived, turning the already slick urban streets into treacherous conditions.<\/p>\n
Milan \u2014 who is winless so far in this Giro \u2014 said riders crashed in front of him on the fight for position coming into a rain-soaked final right corner.<\/p>\n
Unibet Rose Rocket\u2019s leadout man Elmar Reinders slipped out, bringing Groenewegen along with him. <\/p>\n
Bikes and bodies collapsed in front of him, and he couldn\u2019t hold back his frustration when speaking to Eurosport<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWith two drops of water, we get a huge mess. I\u2019m a bit disappointed because I was in a good position, and I\u2019m in good shape. I\u2019m feeling good,\u201d he said. \u201cBut yeah, we have to try to look for these things now, maybe for a bit of hype. Sometimes I really don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n One rider\u2019s misfortune is another\u2019s good luck.<\/p>\n Ballerini, a former leadout man for Mark Cavendish, steered through the chaos and heard the call over the race radio to go for the sprint.<\/p>\n He held off Stuyven and at 31, earns his first Giro stage win.<\/p>\n \u201cI was thinking of winning a stage of the Giro but certainly not this one and not this way,\u201d Ballerini said. \u201cWhen we took the last corner, I saw two guys going down. I was told to go for it. I was hoping for the line to come quickly but it was still quite far and I was at my limit. Fortunately I made it.\u201d<\/p>\n Overnight leader Afonso Eul\u00e1lio finished safely in the bunch to carry the pink jersey into Friday\u2019s summit finish at Blockhaus.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/giro-ditalia\/giro-ditalia-stage-6-results\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2276234797.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated May 14, 2026 10:48AM Jonathan Milan will have to wait to win at the Giro d\u2019Italia after the Italian sprint ace was caught up in a final-corner crash while compatriot Davide Ballerini stayed upright to win a sloppy stage 6. The skies opened up with showers just as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1935975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1935975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1935975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1935975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1935975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Giro d\u2019Italia stage 6 results<\/h2>\n\n<\/div>\n