'It was a bad crash, and it looked very slippery' - Vingegaard navigates Giro stage 2 chaos

Astana's Guillermo Thomas Silva took the stage from the larger group sprint that eventually decided things, with Vingegaard finishing 21st in the same group. 

The bigger story, though, was what had happened before that: a crash that bloodied Adam Yates and cost him over 13 minutes, dropped Derek Gee by a minute, and changed the GC table before the race had really started.

For Vingegaard, the relief in coming through the day untouched was clear in his answers afterwards. The Dane has not forgotten his Itzulia Basque Country crash from 2024, and he was direct in saying that Saturday's pile-up brought back some of the same images.

"Yes. This was a bit different, but of course," Vingegaard told Feltet when asked whether the crash reminded him of his own Itzulia experience. "It was a bad crash, and it looked very slippery. I hope everyone is ok. They crashed right in front of me."

Vingegaard went clear on the final climb with Giulio Pellizzari and Lennert Van Eetvelt, an attack that on the surface looked like an offensive move from the Dane on his Giro debut. He explained afterwards that it had not been.

"That was the plan all day, especially after how it went with the crash. It was the safest way to race the final. The narrower we could make the group, the safer it was on the final descent."

The trio were caught before the line. Vingegaard was also clear that the move had been a genuine cooperation between the three rather than a fight between them, with the priority being to get through the descent rather than to drop one another.

"All three of us tried to play the game. I don't blame any of them for anything. The most important thing was to get to the finish safely."