A fierce attack by Lennard Kämna was unsuccessful, instead Mathieu van der Poel took the pink jersey at the start of the 105th Giro d'Italia after yellow at the 2021 Tour de France.
The Dutchman, grandson of the cycling star Raymond Poulidor, who died in 2019, won the spectacular Giro detour in Hungary after 195 kilometres from Budapest to Visegrad ahead of Biniam Girmay from Eritrea and the Spaniard Pello Bilbao.
However, Kämna caused a sensation when he attacked on the final climb a good two and a half kilometres before the finish and tore the field apart. "It was pretty spontaneous. When I realised that I was in a good position and the peloton came to a halt, I thought to myself: this is a good moment to attack. It didn't work out in the end, but it was still nice. My legs exploded at the back," said Kämna.
Ewan falls
In any case, the competition had been warned. 800 metres before the finish, the 2020 Tour stage winner was caught again - and it came to the expected scenario with van der Poel as the winner. The four-time cyclo-cross world champion had won the second Tour stage on the Mur-de-Bretagne last year in a similar fashion and then wore the yellow jersey for six days. "It's incredible to take the pink jersey. It took a lot of energy to catch up with the guys in the finale," said van der Poel. The final was overshadowed by a crash involving Australian sprint star Caleb Ewan.
However, there is still a lot to expect from Kämna. The 25-year-old presented himself in top form. At the Giro, he wants to go on a stage hunt and help the three top riders around Emanuel Buchmann in the fight for the podium. Buchmann crossed the finish line in 16th place, four seconds behind one of the favourites.
The first of only two individual time trials is on the programme on Saturday. There are 9.2 kilometres to cover in Budapest. The Giro detour in Hungary ends on Sunday before the bunch travels to Sicily. The race continues there on Tuesday.
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