This will bring some relief to the ranks of the Visma-Lease a Bike, who were experiencing a complicated start to the Tour of Italy, notably with the abandonments of Robert Gesink and Christophe Laporte, and beyond a difficult start to the season. , with the serious injuries of Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard. Olav Kooij indeed won the 9th stage of the Tour of Italy on Sunday in Naples.
A rising star in the world sprint for two seasons, the young Dutchman, 22, has won the first victory of his career on a Grand Tour. He was ahead of Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and Sebastian Molano (UAE) in the race. Jhonatan Narvaez (Ineos) was caught just twenty meters from the line, largely due to the pursuit carried out in the last hectometers by the Pink Jersey himself, Tadej Pogacar, transformed into a luxury pilot fish for Molano.
Narvaez had made a big acceleration on the last unlisted hill of the seaside course, 8 km from the finish, which had disrupted the work of the sprint teams for a time, in particular the Lidl-Trek and the Alpecin-Deceuninck. Starting alone, the winner of the 1st stage in Turin, and first Pink Jersey of the race, managed to keep the peloton at bay almost until the end. At the start of his maneuver, he had swallowed up Julian Alaphilippe in the hump, who had kicked off the offensive in a tricky finale, bristling with several climbs.
Alaphilippe extinguished by Narvaez
The French puncher had attacked 27 km from Naples, which doomed the day’s breakaway, made up of two Polti-Kometas, Mirco Maestri and Andrea Pietrobon, in the lead for more than 180 km. Alaphilippe was followed in his adventure by Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ), Nicola Conci (Alpecin) and Kevin Vermaerke (DSM-Firmenich). This group was joined a little further on by Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B & B) and the young Breton had the guts to follow Julian Alaphilippe’s second acceleration, 20 km from the finish this time. The two Frenchmen collaborated in the lead for around ten kilometers before the double world champion, untenable, tried his luck once again while the peloton was getting dangerously close. One last fire before being extinguished by the start of Narvaez, therefore.
The first bump of the finale, that of Monte di Procida, classified in 4th category, had already made a first clean-up and condemned a few sprinters, 36 km from the finish. Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich), David Dekker (Arkéa-B & B), but especially Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step), who was still feeling the after-effects of his fall in the time trial on Friday.
At the end of this first week of racing, the top 10 in the general classification remained unchanged on Sunday. Geraint Thomas was caught in a fall 58 km from the finish, at the exit of a roundabout, but the Welshman was able to restart without difficulty, as was Maximilian Schachmann, Daniel Martinez’s teammate at Bora. The Tour of Italy peloton, however, lost Alexey Lutsenko, who did not start on Sunday morning in Allezzano, due to illness. The Kazakh from Astana was still 6th in the general classification on Saturday morning but had exploded on the climb to Prato di Tivo during the 8th stage. As for Luke Plapp (Jayco), also in great difficulty on Saturday – 20 minutes outlay on Tadej Pogacar, he was dropped again early on Sunday and the rest of the Giro for the Australian champion seemed compromised.
