Place Name: Viale Giosuè Carducci
Address: Viale Giosuè Carducci 79, 55100 Lucca Lucca, Italy
Details: May 8, 2024
The peloton started in Ligure, crossed the North West Apennines and descended into Tuscany for a likely sprint in Lucca. Lewis Askey of Groupama-FDJ, Ewen Costiou of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and Mattia Bais of Polti-Kometa went on the attack first with Simon Geschke of Cofidis and Manuele Tarozzi of Bardiani CSF-Faizanè attacked next. Costiou dropped off the two leaders before Geschke and Tarozzi were able to bridge. Costeiu let the chasers pass him on his way back to the peloton. Tarozzi stopped on the side of the road for an urgent nature break, the other three riders slowed down and waited. By the time Tarozzi got back on, their lead was down to just 23 seconds from the peloton. The break never regained their lead as Alpecin-Deceuninck set a hard pace on the Passo Del Bracco, bringing them back on the descent with 111KM to go. Alpecin-Deceuninck paused their charge with 99KM to go, giving the riders a chance to catch their breath before the Intermediate Sprint. After the Intermediate Sprint at 76KM, four more riders went on the attack, Benjamin Thomas of Cofidis, Michael Valgren of EF-Education EasyPost, Enzo Paleni of Groupama-FDJ and Andrea Pietrobon of Polti-Kometa. They got up to 2 minutes but with 32KM to go at the second Intermediate Sprint, they had just under 1 minute. The break still had 1 minute at 15KM and politics started to play in the peloton. Lidl-Trek was not getting help from other sprint teams with kilometers ticking down. Jayco AlUla and Soudal Quickstep finally sent riders to the front at 12KM from the finish but as they drew closer, the gap stayed solid around 40 seconds with 5KM to go. They still had 25 seconds at 2KM but Pietrobon was sitting on for a number of kilometers before. Pietrobon attacked just past the last KM banner and had a gap. Paleni kept the pressure on the pedals to keep Pietrobon within a closable distance. Valgren went with 250M, dropping Paleni. Thomas came level with Valgren and Pietrobon at 50M and his momentum brought him ahead of Valgren to take his first World Tour win and the very first win for Cofidis of any kind this season. Valgren held on for second place with Pietrobon in third. The peloton came in around 15 seconds later, very disappointed with getting the chase wrong.
Tags: Giro d'Italia, 2024, May, Stage 5, Giro d'Italia 2024, Genova, Lucca, Lewis Askey, Ewen Costiou, Mattia Bais, Simon Geschke, Manuele Tarozzi, Benjamin Thomas, Michael Valgren, Enzo Paleni, Andrea Pietrobon