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Spain’s Igor Arrieta beat Portugal’s Afonso Eulalio to win a soggy stage five of the Giro d’Italia after a thrilling breakaway, although Eulalio had the consolation of taking the overall lead.
The pair had been fighting for the win since going into torrential rain about 50km from the peloton, before suffering similar heavy late crashes.
Both riders slid onto the curb, covering them with cut and torn Lycra, after losing their front wheels at the left-hand corner of the road covered in a stream of rainwater.
Despite losing the stage, Eulalio benefited from the pair being so far ahead of the peloton that the Bahrain-winning rider took the pink jersey of the three-week Grand Tour and was nearly three minutes ahead of his breakaway partner, more than six minutes behind the race favourites.
Arrieta, of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, hit the tarmac first in the 203km run to Potenza in southern Italy, with 14km to go, jumping from his team car onto a spare bike, losing more than 30 seconds to Eulalio.
Eulalio then did exactly the same a few kilometers further down the road, sliding into the curb and hitting the small of his back before yelling at his mechanic to take his spare bike.
As the pair entered Potenza, Arrieta overshot the right corner and began to go the wrong way before being trapped by some tape put up by organizers.
Arrieta almost crashed again with less than a kilometer to go when his rear wheel gave out, but he led a tired Eulalio to overtake him just before the line, in what may have been an orchestrated ‘deal’ between the pair – giving one the stage victory and the other the pink jersey.
Arrieta – the son of former professional cyclist Jose Luis Arrieta – broke down in tears before saying afterwards: “I don’t know what to say. This win means a lot to me.
“I just thought it’s not lost, and I have to try at the end. You never know. I was completely empty in the last kilometer, but I know Afonso is the same – we both deserve to win.”
The win for the UAE came after the team was badly depleted by a crash on Saturday’s similarly treacherous stage two in Bulgaria, losing three of their best riders, including Britain’s biggest competitor in the pink of Adam Yates – whose identical twin brother Simon. won last year’s edition of the race.
Ecuador teammate Ghonatan Narvaez too Tuesday’s stage four was won after a sprint to Cosenza.
Eulalio inherited the pink jersey from Giulio Ciccone of Italy’s Lidl-Trek, who told TNT Sports that the stage was the hardest he had ever run.
Denmark’s Visma-Lijs A Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard – favorite to take the pink jersey on May 31 in Rome – finished safely in the peloton, just seven minutes behind eight other breakaway riders.
Wingard, 29, is 15th in the general classification, six minutes and 22 seconds behind Eulalio. But the Dane and other top contenders will be hoping to regain that time when the race hits the high hills.
