Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) claimed the first Grand Tour stage of his career on stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia, a day when the race's first summit finish drew the overall favourites into direct battle and Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) belied his own insistence that he's not interested in the general classification.
Wellens took advantage of a moment of calm after a brief storm in the bunch to get himself up to the breakaway halfway through the 157km journey from Ponte to Roccaraso, where such names as Fausto Coppi, Bernard Hinault, and Moreno Argentin have celebrated in the past.
The Belgian made his move on the early slopes of the 17km final climb, countering an attack from Laurent Didier (Trek-Segafredo) – who was also part of the bridge to the break – before tucking his arms over his handelbars as if the long second-category ascent were a time trial.
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“I wanted to go from the beginning but I didn’t succeed. Then they [the break] didn’t go very fast, and we could come back with Pim Ligthart, who had the idea to jump to the front,” said Wellens, who also revealed race leader Dumoulin had encouraged him to attack, content to let the break contest stage honours.
“Tom said ‘Tim, it’s a moment to jump – we won’t ride’. Then we bridged, we rode very well and I was the strongest on the final climb, so I’m very happy. I had a lot of pressure, because I said before the Giro that my objective was to win a stage, and I’m happy I did it.”
The 24-year-old was over a minute clear by the time he crossed the line and lifted his bike above his head, by which point shots were being fired among the overall contenders. Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) came home second and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) third, but it was Vuelta a España runner-up Dumoulin, a couple of seconds behind in fourth, who could be most pleased with his day's work.
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