Jumbo shakes off Etna disappointment with Bouwman’s Giro stage 7 win
Jumbo shakes off Etna disappointment with Bouwman's Giro stage 7 win
Koen Bouwman picked up his first career Grand Tour stage win on Friday’s seventh stage of the Giro d’Italia, giving Jumbo-Visma something to celebrate a few days after the team’s GC aspirations crumbled on Mount Etna.
Bouwman took the victory from the day’s breakaway on stage 7, besting Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) and Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) after a long day off the front.
Bouwman, Mollema, Formolo, and Bouwman’s teammate Tom Dumoulin rode into the last few kilometers together after leaving the rest of their breakaway companions behind over the course of the challenging stage, which featured more than 4,000 meters of climbing.
Dumoulin, who had managed to reconnect with the other escapees after being distanced, paced the quartet into the last few hundred meters. Then, with 200 meters to go, Bouwman jumped, and neither Mollema nor Formolo came particularly close to matching his speed.
The 28-year-old sailed across the line for his first Grand Tour stage win and for a much-needed boost for his Jumbo-Visma squad, which came into the Giro backing Dumoulin and Tobias Foss for the GC, only to see both riders distanced on stage 4 to Mount Etna.
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