Giro d'Italia Stage 5: Ackermann wins, Roglic maintains lead (+ reaction and video highlights)

Pascal Ackermann of Bora-Hansgrohe has won a rain-soaked Stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia in Terracina this afternoon, his second stage win of this year's race, just pipping Fernando Gaviria of UAE Team Emirates to the line. With surface water forming, race organisers RCS decided to neutralise general classification times at the first passage of the finish line, 10 kilometres out, and with the peloton passing together, Primoz Roglic of Jumbo-Visma retains his 35 second overall lead from Mitchelton-Scott’s Simon Yates.

Roglic and Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain Merida had dropped back to the race director’s car midway through today’s 140-kilometre stage from Frascati to request that the times be taken as the riders entered the closing circuit, and given the conditions it was little surprise that organisers agreed.

 Just minutes into today’s stage, Tom Dumoulin, injured in a late crash yesterday, decided he couldn’t go on and abandoned. The 2017 Giro d’Italia winner had said before the stage, "I don’t know if it’s possible, but I want to at least try, then I can’t blame myself for not trying."

One of his Team Sunweb colleagues, Louis Vervaeke, did get into a four-man breakaway and was the final member of the group to be swept up with 23 kilometres still to ride as a nervous peloton prepared for the final, with the overall contenders leaving it to the sprinters and their leadout men to fight it out for the win after passing  the finish line for the first time.

Reaction

Stage winner Pascal Ackermann 

Today was one of these days in which I wondered why am I a cyclist. We had to change clothes every 30 seconds or so. It was cold. My goal for my first Giro was always to get to Verona. I'm in a good shape and there are more sprints to come, plus the intermediate sprints if needed, but for sure I'll try and win the cyclamen jersey.

Maglia Rosa Primoz Roglic 

It was the right decision to take the times 10km before the end. We always try to stay safe. We saw yesterday how much can be lost in a crash. Tom Dumoulin's abandonment doesn't change much for me. The only important thing for me is that our team stays focused and we do our job the best we can. Tomorrow, why not lose the Maglia Rosa? It looks like a good stage for the breakaway to succeed.