Eddie Dunbar stays 13th overall in Giro as Mads Pedersen powers home to victory

Ireland’s Eddie Dunbar stayed 13th overall in the Giro d’Italia on Thursday, rolling in as part of a main bunch led home by the Danish rider Mads Pedersen. Former world champion Pedersen completed the rare treble of stage wins in the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España and Tour de France, unleashing a powerful sprint to reel in Colombian sprinter Fernando Gaviria (Movistar Team) and blast home first.

The race to Naples was full of suspense, with breakaway riders Alessandro De Marchi (Jayco AlUla) and Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) getting away early on only to be caught within sight of the finish line.

“I am pretty happy,” said Trek-Segafredo rider Pederesen. “It is what we came for. It is nice to have a victory now. It was a tough day for the team and it is nice to pay them back with this victory. So a good day.

“It was pretty close in the end, it was not easy to catch them for a long time. They still had two minutes and we really had to use basically everyone [to chase] ... not only us, but all the sprinters [teams]. We caught them with 300 metres to go. I feel sorry for those guys because they did really, really well.”

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Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) conserved energy and rolled in 36th on the stage, with fellow Irishman Ben Healy 134th. Both will be banking on a good performance on Friday’s first real mountain stage, with Healy likely to try for a breakaway move and Dunbar set to slug it out with the overall contenders. The stage finishes on the tough slopes of the Campo Imperatore, which tops out at 2,123 metres.

Race leader Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) will start the day in pink, but knows nothing is guaranteed. “Tomorrow will be harder to keep the jersey, but I will do my best.”

Meanwhile, there was frustration for Sam Bennett in the Tour de Hongrie, with the Irish sprinter unable to build upon the second place he took on Wednesday. Bennett and his team had to use a lot of energy into the headwind to try to get back to the front just before the finish and as the sprint opened up, he appeared to run out of power.

European champion Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) blasted home to win stage two, while Bennett finished back in 14th place. He slips from third to fifth overall, with Jakobsen taking over the race lead.

“The rain towards the end of the stage made it very slippery and dangerous,” said Bennett. “You really had to find a good balance between taking risks for positioning and staying on the bike. In the end that took some extra accelerations and cost a lot of energy quite early in the finale already. Compared with headwind, a bit of a blurred vision due to the rain and maybe not the best legs, it just wasn’t the best day for me.”

The race now moves into the mountains for the next two stages, with Sunday’s final stage offering Bennett another chance.