Denmark’s Mads Pedersen outsprinted Wout van Aert to win the primary stage of the Giro d’Italia in Albania.
Britain’s Tom Pidcock completed fifth for his new Q36.5 group, in a race during which the 25-year-old hopes to contend for the coveted total pink jersey and likewise win levels.
However one other contender for pink, Mikel Landa of Spain, deserted the race after fracturing his again in a heavy crash.
The Soudal-Fast step rider seem to collide with a lampost with 5km to go on the strategy to the centre of Albania’s capital metropolis Tirana.
His group stated scans in hospital revealed Landa suffered a “secure fracture of the Th 11 vertebra,” which would require him to “stay in a secure mendacity place for an prolonged time period”.
Landa will stay in hospital in a single day earlier than additional evaluation.
Lidl-Trek’s Pedersen will put on pink in Saturday’s second-stage time trial after benefiting from the tempo set by his team-mates on the entrance of the peloton over the ultimate Surrel climb, which noticed the pure sprinters within the race dropped from the main bunch.
“It is completely wonderful, particularly after the group work like this, it is actually unbelievable that the group works that onerous and I pays them again with a win,” he stated.
Pedersen is a extremely adorned rider, having received the 2019 Highway World Championship, one-day classics and now his seventh Grand Tour stage.
The 29-year-old beat Visma-Lease A Bike’s Van Aert to the road by a wheel – the Belgian is predicted to be Pedersen’s foremost rival for the ciclamino-coloured factors jersey.
An exhausted Van Aert stated afterwards: “You solely get one or two possibilities to take pink, however on that final climb I struggled to remain in.”
