A potential day for the breakaway, the second longest stage of the race saw the peloton take on 214 kilometres from Avezzano to Naples. However, with a two rider move going almost from the flag drop it seemed as if the bunch was happy to set up a sprint finish. Yet, with some hills in the finale and twisting city streets around Naples, there was a chance a later attacking move and break could go clear. Coming into those hills the team focused on positioning Kevin Vermaerke, who then launched out of the peloton to follow an attack from Alaphilippe. Initially getting a gap of around 15 seconds over the peloton with around 20 kilometres to go, the bunch got organised and began to set tempo, while Vermaerke’s group split up, with the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rider brought back ahead of the penultimate climb. In the bunch, the rest of the guys looked after Romain Bardet well who finished safely in the peloton, in the reduced group sprint.
Vermaerke said: “It was already a hard effort to get the gap. Every little acceleration you have to do to close the wheel to get back in the pace line takes a bit out of the legs. It was also a bit further from the line than expected, I went through the group and then realised we still had 25 kilometres to go in the headwind on the flat road. The goal was to be up there and try something. Maybe if the composition of the group was a bit different and we got a bit more time then it could have been different. You never know if you don’t try. It’s been a hard first nine days and we’ve had a bit of sickness and injury in the team, but we’ll try to recover tomorrow. A Grand Tour has plenty of options coming up so we will take each day for what comes and try again in the next days.”
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Matt Winston added: “It was a long stage where we had to really focus for a hectic final. The goal was to he active in the final with Kevin, and I think he did a really solid job but didn’t pay off this time. I’m happy we go into the rest day after four days of really positive racing by the team here so we’ll recover and regroup, and look to build on that next week.”
