Naples, in the wreckage
Davide Ballerini did not plan to win Stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia. He was there to work. On the slick cobbles of Piazza del Plebiscito, with a few drops of rain falling on the final corner, the plan came apart — and the door swung open.
The 141-kilometre run from Paestum to Naples had promised the sprinters another day. It delivered chaos instead. The organisers had abandoned the flat city finish of previous years, routing the peloton onto cobbles inside the final kilometre with a sharp bend positioned around 300 metres from the line. Unibet Rose Rockets had executed everything to perfection until that final corner, when Elmar Reinders touched the brakes on the slippery cobbles and crashed, taking down Dylan Groenewegen, then Jonathan Milan, and many others.
On the inside line, Ballerini and Jasper Stuyven avoided the carnage. Originally meant to lead out Matteo Malucelli and Paul Magnier respectively, they instead found themselves battling for the stage win. Ballerini powered up the rising finishing straight while Stuyven tried to close the gap; the Belgian came close, but Ballerini held firm. Magnier recovered from the crash to take third place.
The winner made no pretence about how it happened. "Today, the sprinter was Matteo Malucelli, and I was trying to do the maximum for him," Ballerini said after the finish. "But when we arrived at the last corner, I saw that the first two guys had a crash."
"I was hoping the finish line would come quickly, but it was still quite far away and I was on the limit. Fortunately, I made it. I've finally won a stage of the Giro d'Italia."
A first, at last
The victory carried weight because of what preceded it. This was Ballerini's first win at the Corsa Rosa, on a day he handed Italy its first victory of the edition. At 31, it was the eleventh and best win of his career. He had ridden the Giro before, always in service, always short of the moment that finally arrived on Neapolitan cobbles.
The wider race barely moved. Behind the stage battle there was no change in the general classification; the peloton reached Naples together, and Afonso Eulália kept the maglia rosa. The stage also gave XDS Astana their second win of this Giro, after Guillermo Thomas Silva took stage two.
Ballerini had held the right wheel, stayed upright and finished the job when the road cleared. There is a kind of victory that arrives only for those still standing. On Thursday in Naples, that was Davide Ballerini.
