Giro d’Italia 2023: Disaster for breakaway as Mads Pedersen snatches Stage 6 win, Remco Evenepoel fights on

This time a year ago, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) had not won a stage on a Grand Tour. On Thursday, the 27-year-old Dane was a stage winner in all three after completing the milestone in just 251 days. In so doing, Pedersen denied Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) the chance of achieving the same feat in what would have been a lengthier but no less sweet 3,915 days.

Australian veteran Clarke looked odds-on to contest the finish with Italy’s Alessandro De Marchi (Team Jayco-AlUla) after the duo defied the peloton on the twisting and breathtakingly beautiful roads of the Amalfi coast. But the last two surviving riders from an initial five-man break were swallowed up by the peloton with just two-hundred metres remaining as Pedersen triumphed on the streets of Napoli. Ad Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) opened up the sprint and seemed a safe bet to pick up his first win on the Giro in five years.

But Pedersen used all his power to surge past Gaviria and complete the final piece of his Grand Tour jigsaw following stage victories last summer in the Tour de France and La Vuelta. Giro d'ItaliaCrashes put Evenepoel’s 'great champion' dream at risk – Vaughters4 HOURS AGO The impressive Italian youngster Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) continued his fine debut Giro with second place ahead of Germany’s Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates), with the Australian Stage 5 winner Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) pipping a fading Gaviria for fourth. «I'm pretty happy — it's what we came for and it's nice to have a victory now,” said Pedersen, who’s win came after previous second- and third-place finishes.

“It was a tough day for the team and it's nice to pay them back with a victory today. It was pretty close in the end. It