The first German stage win at the Giro d'Italia 2023 came within a hair's breadth. Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) won the 11th stage by an extremely narrow margin ahead of Jonathan Milan (Bahrain-Victorious). It was not until the finish photo that it became clear that the former German road champion had crossed the finish line first and secured his third victory of the day in the Tour of Italy. Third place went to Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team). With Marius Mayrhofer (Team DSM), another German rider finished seventh in the top 10 of the 11th stage of the 2023 Giro d'Italia.
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"This is a very special victory. Especially after my injury last year. Today was the first time I had a team-mate to help me in the sprint and we showed what I'm capable of. I rode the sprint from the front and was happy that Cavendish was so strong and ultimately gave me such a good start to the sprint," said Ackermann, who already won two Giro stages and the points classification in 2019.
The top 10 of the 11th stage
- Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) 5:09:02
- Jonathan Milan (Bahrain-Victorious) +0:00
- Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team) +0:00
- Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) +0:00
- Stefano Oldani (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +0:00
- Vincenzo Albanese (Eolo-Kometa) +0:00
- Marius Mayrhofer (Team DSM) +0:00
- Davide Ballerini (Soudal - Quick Step) +0:00
- Simone Consonni (Cofidis) +0:00
- Arne Marit (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) +0:00
Bitter day for Ineos Grenadiers
The 11th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2023 went very badly for the Ineos Grenadiers team. Geraint Thomas defended the pink jersey. However, a large part of the team crashed on a descent. While Thomas quickly got back on his bike, Tao Geoghegan Hart, who had been third in the overall standings until then, was unable to continue. The winner of the 2020 Giro d'Italia was taken away in an ambulance.
"It was a left-hand bend. A driver from UAE Team Emirates crashed next to me. Fortunately, I landed on top of him. Tao was badly hit. Pavel (Sivakov; editor's note) is okay I think, Primoz Roglic also crashed. Not a good situation. Tao's retirement is a big loss for us. He was in a great position in the overall standings. I hope he's okay," said Geraint Thomas, describing the crash from his point of view.
Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe) moved up to 6th place in the overall standings of the Giro d'Italia 2023 due to the withdrawal of Geoghegan Hart. He is still 1:52 minutes behind Geraint Thomas.
This is how the 11th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2023 went
After the start of the longest stage of the Giro d'Italia 2023 (219 kilometres), six riders broke away from the peloton: Thomas Champion (Cofidis), Filippo Magli (Green Project - Bardiani CSF - Faizane), Alexander Konychev and Veljko Stojnic (both Team Corratec - Selle Italia), Diego Pablo Sevilla (Eolo-Kometa) and Laurenz Rex (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty). The sprinters quickly formed up in the peloton and kept the race under control. The breakaways decided the mountain and sprint classifications among themselves.
It all looked like a typical sprint stage, but there were serious crashes on a descent after the Colla di Boasi (3rd category). First, a large part of the Ineos Grenadiers team lay on the road in a left-hand bend around 70 kilometres before the finish. A rider from UAE Team Emirates slipped off and triggered a chain reaction. Geraint Thomas crashed into him, but was able to continue his ride quickly. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) was also involved in the crash, but was also quickly back on his bike. For Tao Geoghegan Hart, on the other hand, the race was over. The former Giro winner was taken away by ambulance. Pavel Sivakov from Ineos Grenadiers, eighth in the overall standings of the 2023 Giro d'Italia before the stage, also lost a lot of time after the crash and dropped back to 23rd place in the battle for the pink jersey.
Rodriguez crashes into house wall
Shortly after this first scary moment, there was another crash. Oscar Rodriguez of Movistar lost control of his bike on the same descent, touched a traffic sign and crashed into a house wall. The Spaniard was conscious, but was unable to continue the Giro d'Italia 2023.
In the finale, Jayco-AlUla around Michael Matthews tried to shake off some sprinters at the last mountain classification of the day, the Passo della Castagnola (4th category), but abandoned the endeavour. Meanwhile, the breakaway group at the front fell apart. Laurenz Rex stayed in front the longest. The Belgian from Intermarche-Circus-Wanty was only caught five kilometres before the finish.
Giro d'Italia 2023: Ackermann from Cavendish's slipstream to victory
Things got hectic again in the run-up to the final sprint. After a chicane, there was another crash around two kilometres before the finish, involving Jasha Sütterlin (Bahrain-Victorious) among others. Trek-Segafredo took up the sprint for Mads Pedersen in the final kilometre, with the Dane going into the wind 300 metres before the finish. Mark Cavendish took off from his rear wheel.
However, the Briton involuntarily pulled Pascal Ackermann into the sprint. The German rode past out of Cavendish's slipstream, but was almost overtaken by Jonathan Milan, who rode up at high speed. Ackermann was already celebrating and was certain that he had won. But it was only after looking at the photo of the finish that it became clear that he had narrowly won the 11th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2023.
