Kaden Groves' Giro d'Italia misery continues with 7th place in Naples: "I may have wasted too much energy"

Kaden Groves put his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates to work for the entirety of stage 9, but was unable to finish off the job in Naples. After an exciting and difficult final in the sprint, the Australian did not get further than seventh place and continues a rather disappointing Giro d'Italia.

Groves was quite disappointed afterwards. "It was quite a difficult stage, although we had taken this into account somewhat. Also that we would go to the finish with a fairly large group," he looked back on the ninth stage with Eurosport.

"In the final, Julian Alaphilippe got away and Jhonatan Narváez also made a particularly strong impression with his late attack. And then there was the hectic finale. Lidl-Trek managed to control the stage, but in the end Olav Kooij simply had the fastest legs."

Groves was not really involved in the sprint and that is quite surprising. However, the Australian mainly looks in the mirror. "I may have been racing a little too aggressively along the way. I tried to go along with some attacks, but the final was very tough."

"I may have wasted too much energy. In the final I couldn't really count on help anymore, because I decided to use my teammates earlier. And that had its consequences in the final."