Stuyven questions Groenewegen and Reinders after Giro d’Italia sprint crash: ‘They kept pedalling through the corner’

The 34-year-old Belgian did not hide his frustration after narrowly missing out on victory on stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia, with the Belgian suggesting the crash that shaped the finale in Naples was not simply a case of bad luck.

Davide Ballerini won the stage for XDS Astana after a late fall disrupted the sprint in the final corner, while Stuyven came through for second place. Paul Magnier, the rider Soudal Quick-Step had been working for, was also delayed by the incident but still recovered to finish third.

The crash came as the peloton hit a wet cobbled turn in the final few hundred metres. Unibet Rose Rockets had been leading the sprint into the corner, with Elmar Reinders and Dylan Groenewegen among the riders at the front. Stuyven felt the way the turn was taken contributed directly to the chaos.

“I find it a shame that guys like Elmar and Dylan, who have so much experience, keep pedalling through a corner on cobbles,” Stuyven said to Sporza. “I already thought it was quite something that they dared to do that.”

The Belgian said he understood why riders were reluctant to give up position so close to the line, especially when a sprint train had done the work to take control of the run in. But with rain falling and the cobbles slick, he felt the danger was obvious.

“They are in the perfect position and they do not want to give it away,” he said. “But those little cobbles are just super slippery, especially when it starts to rain.”

For Soudal Quick-Step, the crash changed the entire finish. Stuyven said he had been where he needed to be to lead out Magnier, rather than sprint for the win himself. Once the fall blocked his teammate, he suddenly found himself chasing Ballerini for the stage.

That chance was then compromised by a mechanical issue. Stuyven said someone appeared to have hit his derailleur in the chaos, leaving him unable to shift properly in the final metres.

“I did sprint, but not in the gear I wanted,” he said. “I was hoping to get into Ballerini’s slipstream. It is a shame that the equipment worked against me.”

Stuyven stopped short of saying he would have beaten Ballerini without the problem, but he clearly felt the win was within reach.

“I am not saying I would definitely have come past him, but I think the chance would have been big,” he said.

His frustration extended beyond the actions of the riders. Stuyven also questioned why the finish had to include a cobbled corner at all, pointing out that the race ended on a wide avenue where a safer finale could have been designed.

“We are standing here on a very wide avenue. What is wrong with that?” he said.

He added that Naples could still have provided the desired scenery without routing the peloton through the most dangerous part of the finale.

“I do not think it was necessary to turn onto the cobbles,” Stuyven said. “It is a shame that they always go looking for it, especially because it could perfectly have been avoided.”

The timing of the rain made the finale worse, but Stuyven said the concerns had been there before the peloton reached the finish. For him, the discussion once again came too late.

“It is always only afterwards that we discuss it,” he said. “That is a shame.”