Dversnes keeps sprinters at bay to win Giro stage 15, Vingegaard retains pink

May 24 : Norway's Fredrik Dversnes outsprinted rivals in a breakaway group and kept the peloton at bay to win stage 15 of Giro d'Italia on Sunday, with Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard retaining the pink jersey after the stage was shortened for safety reasons.

Dversnes, an Uno-X Mobility rider, joined Martin Marcellusi, Mattia Bais and Mirco Maestri in the break and prevailed in a four-man sprint to the finish line. 

Italians Maestri and Marcellusi also made the podium, in second and third place respectively.

"This was my big shot," said Dversnes, the first Norwegian to win a stage in Giro d'Italia since Edvald Boasson Hagen

won the seventh stage in 2009.

"You always think about (the win) on the way, but when we had two minutes' lead pretty late in the race, you of course start believing."

The breakaway group set a high pace in the flat stage, maintaining an average speed of over 51 km per hour. 

The peloton hung back in the 157-km ride from Voghera as they entered Milan for four laps in a 16.3-km local circuit with the leaders still over two minutes ahead.

However, several riders faced trouble with the placing of barriers near the narrow finish line, and some approached race director Marco Velo's car to complain about them, including leader Vingegaard.

NEAR-CRASH

"It's dangerous," the two-time Tour de France winner was heard on the broadcast telling Velo through the car window, just as his bike shook hard as he rode over a pothole.

"Look, I almost crashed now," Vingegaard shouted to the director, pointing out an additional issue with the stage's rough surface.

Soon after, the race jury ruled that the final five kilometres of the stage would not count for general classification.

Later, that was extended to the entire final lap, with the