Jonathan Milan insists he is 'not demoralised' by Giro sprint defeats

Jonathan Milan endured another frustrating out on the Giro d’Italia with the Italian narrowly beaten into second place by Paul Magnier in the bunch sprint in Sofia on stage 3.

In Burgas on Friday, Milan had paid the price for losing contact with his Lidl-Trek lead-out in the closing kilometres, with the energy expended to get back into position leaving him depleted for the sprint.

This time around, Lidl-Trek were altogether more fluid in the finale, and Milan was positioned precisely where he wanted to be in the closing kilometre. He hit the front on the crown of the final bend, as he had wished, but he confessed afterwards that his strategy might have been flawed.

Magnier came past him as they rattled along the cobblestones that marked the final 100m of the sprint, and Milan had to settle for second place.

“I think we improved compared to the last couple of days; we rode well as a team in the finale, and we held our positions in the final kilometres,” Milan told RAI television afterwards. “We did what we wanted to do, even if the result wasn’t the one that we had wanted. 

“Maybe I went a bit too early before the corner. I thought the crown of the last corner was a little bit closer to the finish, and I thought I needed to hit the right speed there to take the cobbled section from the front and then not get overtaken. 

“But it didn’t work out that way. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer, and instead I went a bit early.”

After winning two stages and the green jersey at last year’s Tour de France, Milan returned to the Giro this year as the man to beat in the sprints. His two previous Giro appearances yielded four stage wins and two victories in points classification, and he will hope to get off the mark when the race reaches Italy after Monday’s rest day.

“I don’t know what to say, but from a psychological point of view, it’s not that I’m demoralised by these results, quite the opposite,” Milan said.

“Tomorrow is a travel day and then bit by bit I’ll look to recovery, and I’ll try to win and enjoy myself. I’m starting to feel a bit better day by day. Maybe in the first two days I was still trying to open the gas a bit. But to be clear, that’s not an excuse, it’s just how I felt.”