The stage started with rain, not the weather, when we’re thinking about “the sunny Italy”.
The route was 205 km long (between Bologna and Fucecchio) and as usual, an 8 riders group breakaway formed early.One of the riders was the blue jersey wearer Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo),who rode an excellent race today and remains in the KOM-jersey for at least one more day. Ciccone had seven buddies this day with: his teammate, Will Clarke, Francois Bidard (AG2R La Mondiale), Marco Frapporti (Androni Giocattoli), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF), Łukasz Owsian (CCC Team), Sean Bennett (EF Education First), and Damiano Cima (Nippo-Vini Fantini)
It was an impressive breakaway. Four of them (Ciccone, Bidard, Frapporti and Owsian) survived the two climbs of the day (Category 3 at 47km and Category 4 at 267 km), have been caught only 8 km to go.
BORA-hansgrohe worked most for the bunch sprint, but inside the final kilometres Lotto-Soudal had the best position, at 300 m to go Caleb Ewan still had a lead-out man. Behind him Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates), Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QUick Step) and Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) were waiting for the right moment to attack, but finally Pascal Ackermann (BORA-hansgrohe) was the bravest and the strongest among the sprinters and won the stage.
It was Ackermann’s first Giro (and first GT-) victory ever.
See more:
Stage 2 – results
GC after Stage 2
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