Giro D'Italia Week 1

It has been a week since the Giro started and since then we have lost riders through crashes and seen a big shake up in the GC standings.

To start with the good news, Mads Pedersen has won three out of a possible six stages and is the current owner of the points jersey with Lidl-Trek also leading the teams classification. Primoz Roglic is currently leading the General Classification. Joshua Tarling, Casper Van Uden, Kaden Groves and Juan Ayuso all have one stage to their names this year and the list is likely to grow with riders such as Roglic and Carapaz being the favourites for GC and mountain stages.

The list of riders who have abandoned has been growing. After the fist stage we were already down to 182 out of the 184 on the start list as Mikel Landa and Geoffrey Bouchard left. The next abandon was on stage 4 while the start of stage 5 saw another competitor leave as Soren Kragh Andersen was unable to start.

After stage 6 the peloton contained 176 riders due to a large crash around kilometer 156 which caused the race to be neutralised. After it was restarted no time bonuses were allocated and times were taken from the point of the crash meaning the only thing up for grabs was the stage win itself which went to Kaden Groves. Olav Kooij was unable to be in the running for the win at the line itself as Matteo Moschetti forced him into the barriers, he was relegated to the back. Three more were lost today, two did not start with one not finishing the stage.

Those no longer in the race are as follows:

(DNF Stage 1) Geoffrey Bouchard - Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team

(DNF Stage 1) Mikel Landa Soudal - Quick-Step

(DNF Stage 4) Nickolas Zukowsky - Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team

(DNS Stage 5) Soren Kragh Andersen - Lidl-Trek

(DNS Stage 6) Alessandro Pinarello - VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizane

(DNF Stage 6) Dion Smith - Intermarche - Wanty

(DNF Stage 6) Juri Hollmann - Alpecin - Deceuninck

(DNF Stage 6) Jai Hindley - Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe

(DNS Stage 7) Michel Ries - Arkea B&B Hotels

(DNS Stage 7) Jan Hirt - Israel Premier Tech

(DNF Stage 7) Bram Welten - Team Picnic PostNL

The Classification leaders after Stage 7:

GC: Primoz Roglic

Points: Mads Pedersen

Mountains: Lorenzo Fortunato

Youth: Juan Ayuso

Teams: UAE Team Emirates - XRG

The GC competition looks to be close with Roglic only reaching first on stage 7 but he did not win the stage, that went to Juan Ayuso who moved up into second 4 seconds behind the leader with his teammate in third by a further 5 seconds. Simon Yates has moved himself up into 9th position for Team Visma Lease a Bike after the first mountain stage and looks set to be participating in the battle in his new team.