Crazy last corner causes bizarre two up sprint. Giro d'Italia stage 6 reaction and analysis

Another day of Giro action and another stage where a straightforward stage on paper causes chaos as Davide Ballerini beat Jasper Stuyven in a two-man sprint in what should have been a massive group sprint. 

The day up until the final kilometre was, as expected, a small break formed, but they were never given a chance by the sprinters' teams; the gap never got over two minutes, and they were caught comfortably before the end, leading to a weird final twenty kilometres where the peloton was line a stern with no team wanting to take the lead so the peloton sat with each team in a line at 40km/h till the final 5km where finally the stage sprung into action. 

The Unibet Rose Rockets dominated the front of the peloton in the run-in and were in the perfect position with Groenewegen in second position with just his leadout man in front of him going into the final hairpin corner before the long drag up to the line but 5 minutes before the riders arrived in Naples it started raining making the already slippery cobbles on the finale like ice which meant as the leading sprinters at the front of the peloton turned into the final corner most of them slipped out and ended up on the deck with Groenewegen, Milan and Vernon hitting the deck and Magnier being forced to unclip and having no chance in the sprint. 

The only two riders to not lose any time were Davide Ballerini and Jasper Stuyven, who, on a normal day, Stuyven would probably be favoured to win that head-to-head sprint, but because he had guided Magnier to the front he had expended more energy than Ballerini who once he started his sprint Stuyven tried and tried to get closer too him but never really looked like being able to get around leading to the first Italian stage winner of this years Giro and the second victory for Astana in what is looking like being a fantastic Giro for the Kazakh team.

Magnier was able to reclip and finish third, extending his lead in the race for the Maglia Ciclamino to 66 points ahead of Milan. 
In the GC, nothing has changed with yesterday's winner Eulalio maintaining his near 3-minute advantage on Igor Arrieta, with the pre-race GC favourites headed by Giulio Ciccone at 6 minutes 12 seconds behind heading into the first proper GC battle tomorrow up to Blockhaus.

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