Spain’s Igor Arrieta beat Afonso Eulalio of Portugal to win a soaking-wet stage five of the Giro d’Italia after a thrilling breakaway battle, although Eulalio had the consolation of taking the overall lead.
The pair had been battling it out for victory since riding away from the peloton with about 50km to go in torrential rain, before suffering identical heavy late crashes.
Both riders slid into the kerb after losing their front wheels on left-hand corners on roads covered by streams of rainwater, leaving them covered in cuts and with ripped Lycra.
Despite losing the stage, Eulalio benefited from the pair being so far ahead of the peloton that the Bahrain-Victorious rider took the pink jersey of the three-week Grand Tour, and leads by nearly three minutes from his breakaway companon, with the race favourites over six minutes behind.
Arrieta, of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, was the first to hit the tarmac on the 203km race to Potenza in southern Italy with 14km to go, jumping on a spare bike from his team car, having lost more than 30 seconds to Eulalio.
Eulalio then did exactly the same just a few kilometres further down the road, sliding into the kerb and hitting the small of his back before yelling at his mechanic as he took his spare bike.
As the pair entered Potenza, Arrieta overshot a right-hand corner and started to go down the wrong road before becoming entangled by some tape put up by organisers.
With less than a kilometre to go Arrieta nearly crashed again as his rear wheel slid out, but he hauled in an exhausted Eulalio to overtake him just before the line, in what could have been an orchestrated ‘deal’ between the pair – giving one the stage victory and the other the pink jersey.
Arrieta – son of former professional cyclist Jose Luis Arrieta – burst into tears before emotionally saying afterwards: “I don’t know what to say. This victory means a lot me.
“I just thought it was not lost, and I need to try to the end. You never know. I was completely empty in last kilometres, but I know Afonso is the same – we both deserved the victory.”
The win for UAE comes after the severely depleted team lost their three best riders in one crash on the similarly treacherous stage two in Bulgaria on Saturday, including one of its biggest contenders for pink in Britain’s Adam Yates – whose identical twin brother Simon won last year’s edition of the race.
Team-mate Jhonatan Narvaez of Ecuador also won Tuesday’s stage four after a sprint to Cosenza.
Eulalio inherited the pink jersey from Italy’s Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek, who told TNT Sports the stage was one of the hardest he had ridden.
Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike – favourite to take the pink jersey in Rome on 31 May – finished safely in the peloton, just over seven minutes behind another eight breakaway riders.
Vingegaard, 29, sits 15th in the general classification, six minutes 22 seconds down on Eulalio. But the Dane and the other main contenders will expect to claw back the time when the race hits the high mountains.