Giro d’Italia 2022 : Stage 6 – Demare doubles up, Lopez stays in pink

Cycling fans, one and all, stand up and give yourself a jolly good pat on the back for making it through to the end of Stage 6 of this year’s Giro D’Italia. A long, painful, uneventful affair ultimately saw Arnaud Demare double up the stage wins, all the while tightening his grip on the maglia ciclamino. In a horribly frantic final kilometre, in which frankly it was a miracle there were no crashes, the best of the best sprinters went to battle for the day’s honours. Lotto Soudal’s Caleb Ewan lost out to Demare by truly the finest of margins (see our 50-slide powerpoint presentation on the camera angles being wrong later), and Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) rounded out the podium with his first ever(!) third place finish at the Italian Grand Tour. No change in the jerseys or the GC.
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Giro d’Italia 2022 : Stage 5 – Victoire for Demare as Lopez stays in pink.

Stage Five of the Giro saw the Groupama-FDJ team deliver Arnaud Demare perfectly to claim his first victory of the year – and the beautiful maglia ciclamino. The French speedster survived a climb which took hot favourites Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) and Lotto-Soudal’s Caleb Ewan out of contention with 100km to go. Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates and Israel Premier Tech’s Giacomo Nizzolo joined him to complete the podium. There was little change in the GC with Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) retaining the pink jersey for another day. In other news from Messina, local hero Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Qaxaqstan) announced his retirement from the sport at the end of the 2022 season.
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Giro d’Italia 2022 : Stage 4 -Kämna takes the stage; Lopez in pink

The first mountain stage of 2022 Giro d’Italia and it was an uphill finish on a volcano. What’s not to love? Appearing so early in the race, the ride up Mt Etna was never going to be a GC fight, but we did see a few big names rule themselves out of the GC running. While big name riders were making their way to the gruppetto, the day’s breakaway broke up with Bora’s Lennard Kämna battling the finish out with Trek Segafredo’s Juan Pedro Lopez. In the end, Kämna took the stage, while Lopez slipped on the maglia rosa. The GC top ten was shaken and stirred.
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