Giro d'Italia | Kaden Groves wins stage 6 sprint; Neutralized finish after mass crash that sees Jai Hindley abandon

Alpecin-Deceuninck brought Kaden Groves to the Giro d'Italia as their absolute leader and that confidence has been rewarded today. In a day marked by the crashes and neutralization that followed, the Australian sprinter was the absolute fastest in the final sprint and took his first win.

The stage was long with 227 kilometers on the menu and an uphill start that saw the first real fight for a breakaway in this race. Joshua Tarling tried several times, the likes of Lorenzo Fortunato and Jay Vine were also active, and INEOS Grenadiers put in a lot of energy to try and form a strong group up front.

Ultimately, this proved to not be the case, instead with Taco van der Hoorn and Enzo Paleni forming the day's escapee group - whilst Fortunato did briefly join them, to capture KOM points. It was a day heavily marked by a crash that took place with over 70 kilometers to go, which involved Richard Carapaz, Paul Magnier and Jai Hindley. The latter abandoned, a big casualty for Primoz Roglic and Red Bull - BORA - hangrohe.

The race was neutralized as a result of that fall, and the decision was made to have no points for the points classification or GC times at the finish line. This saw many, including Mads Pedersen, switch off with still a long distance to the finish line, and so we had a small peloton reach Napoli in contention for the stage win. The front duo actually caused quite a lot of concern specially in the final kilometers as the gap remained steady and Visma lacked the firepower to completely close it down. Alpecin-Deceuninck then took control and finished the job with just over 2 kilometers to go.

Alpecin's numeric superiority saw them have a rider escape inside the final kilometer, and then it was Wout van Aert who closed the gap and went off the front himself. The unlikely work of Polti VisitMalta closed it into the final sprint where Matteo Moschetti was the first rider to launch his sprint. Olav Kooj was slightly blocked, and on the right side of the road Kaden Groves sprinted to a strong and uncontested victory in the coastal city. Milan Fretin and Paul Magnier finished second and third.