Pellizzari responds to Vingegaard's first blow at Giro: 'We'll keep our feet on the ground'

The mass crash with 23km to go was the story of the day on stage 2 of the Giro d’Italia, but the finale also saw the first head-to-head contest between Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and pre-race favourite Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike).

Vingegaard ignited the action with a stinging double attack on the Lyaskoevts Monastery Pass, where Pellizzari and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Intermarché) were the only riders able to follow.

That trio built a lead of 20 seconds over a chasing group of 30 or so riders, but they would be caught in the final kilometre on the drag to the finish line in Veliko Tarnovo, where Guillermo Thomas Silva (XDS-Astana) claimed a surprise victory.

Pellizzari came across the line in fifth on the stage, and he lies 30th overall, 10 seconds down on Silva and still locked on the same time as Vingegaard. It was a day that saw some other GC contenders suffer hefty losses in the mass crash, with Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) conceding a minute and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) losing over 13 minutes.

“The legs were good and seeing how the final sprint went, I think I could have had a shot at the win if we’d stayed away, but so it goes,” Pellizzari told RAI television after the finish, though he downplayed the idea that he had passed the first test of his credentials against Vingegaard.

“Yeah, I was good, the legs were good, but there’s still three weeks to go and the real climbs are still ahead of us, so we have to keep our feet on the ground and keep going day by day. We’ll try to do our best.”

The race was briefly neutralised following a high-speed crash on a slippery section of road with 23km to go. Marc Soler of UAE Team Emirates-XRG appeared to be the first riders to crash, with more than 30 riders coming down in the incident.

Pellizzari’s teammate Aleksandr Vlasov was among the riders forced to abandon the Giro, together with Soler, Jay Vine (UAE), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) and Adne Holter (Uno-X Mobility).

“Even though I’m still young, I’ve seen that cycling is changing year by year and nobody touches the brakes anymore. And when nobody touches the brakes, somebody falls. So it was normal,” Pellizzari said. 

“When it rains, it’s always slippery, so you have to be cautious. And if you want to take risks, then you fall.”