Bauke Mollema gets green light for stage hunting, but comes up just short: "I tried everything, but it was not possible"

Bauke Mollema was one the main climbers that came into the Giro d'Italia with ambitions to win a stage, and he was in the right place at the right time today. He was close to taking the win in Potenza, however he couldn't finish above second place on the day.

"It was nice that I could still go for the stage. I mean I didn’t have to pull too much in the beginning because we were also protecting the jersey, which was also a goal today," Mollema said after the stage, despite having done a considerable amount of work whilst Trek - Segafredo took responsibility of the chase behind so as to keep the pink jersey.

"So in the end I still had a chance for the stage and we kept pink, so a pretty good day for us, I guess," he added, after having finished second on the day. The Dutchman finished seventh on the opening day, however his loss of time on Mount Etna coincided with his stage-winning ambitions, which saw it's first attempt today.

“It was full gas already in the first 60-70 kilometers, and already a lot of splits in the peloton. In the beginning, I didn’t do too much; everyone was attacking especially on the big road on the flats, so I went for the hard moments on the climbs," Mollema explained. Eventually he made it into the winning group: “In the end, we had a strong group with a lot of Dutch guys! I didn’t have to pull too much because we were pulling the peloton to keep the pink jersey, so it was quite a good situation for us.”

As the group slowly lost members, Mollema tried to take advantage of the final climbs to create the difference, but the riders remaining were very evenly balanced which meant they arrived at the finale together. "I felt quite good, but I knew that Koen Bouwman was pretty fast, so I tried to attack a couple of times in the last 10 kilometers. But he was always directly on my wheel, and he also had Tom Dumoulin there to pull in the finale, so it was a difficult situation," he said, eventually sprinting to second place, but quite distant from stage win Bouwman.

"I tried everything, but it was not possible to beat Bouwman in the sprint. I think in the end, it was a really nice stage, full gas all day, and hopefully there’s more chances coming up in the next weeks. Close, not enough, but at least we keep the jersey," he concluded - however, he will be eyeing wins in the coming weeks, unless Juan Pedro López keep his pink jersey over the ninth stage to Blockhaus which would put him high up in the battle for the overall classification.