Australia’s Caleb Ewan won stage five of the Giro d’Italia, but one of the general classification contenders, Mikel Landa, crashed out in Cattolica.
Ewan, 26, outsprinted Italy’s Giacomo Nizzolo and Elia Viviani and win his fourth career Giro stage.
Landa, 31, was unable to finish and left in an ambulance after crashing with stage four winner Joe Dombrowski.
The Spaniard’s team later confirmed he had suffered a broken collarbone and injuries to his ribs.
Israel Start-Up Nation’s Alessandro de Marchi of Italy kept the pink jersey.
De Marchi called the finish to the 177km relatively flat stage from Modena “a crazy circus”.
He said: “The road was really difficult and technical, even too dangerous in my opinion, so in the last 70km there was really a lot of stress and I hope the guys that crashed are fine.”
Dombrowski, who was second overnight, managed to continue after the crash but lost eight minutes, leaving Alpecin-Fenix’s Louis Vervaeke closest to De Marchi, 42 seconds down.
Pavel Sivakov, who was a potential foil for Ineos Grenadiers’ Egan Bernal, was another to crash and finished over 13 minutes down.
Ewan, who also has five stage wins at the Tour de France, said the victory was a “relief”.
“My goal this year is to win in all three Grand Tours and the first sprint stage didn’t go so good, so there was a lot of pressure on me and all the team to do the job,” the Lotto-Soudal rider said.
“They out-performed themselves, they were so good today and without them I couldn’t have been so fresh at the finish.”
Britain’s Hugh Carthy is up to ninth place for EF Education Nippo, one minute 38 seconds behind, while Simon Yates sits in 14th place, a further 10 seconds back.
Meanwhile, the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, has handed a two-month ban to French rider Nacer Bouhanni following an investigation into an incident at the Cholet-Pays de la Loire race in March.
Sprinter Bouhanni, 30, of Team Arkea-Samsic, moved over on young British rider Jake Stewart of Groupama-FDJ, causing the 21-year-old to collide with the barriers and suffer a fractured bone in his hand, preventing him from racing at the Tour of Flanders.
Bouhanni was heavily criticised for the move, suffering racist abuse on social media, and pulling out of the Scheldeprijs race as a result. The UCI condemned the abuse at the time.
Giro d’Italia stage five results
1. Caleb Ewan (Aus) Lotto Coudal 4hrs 7mins 1sec
2. Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Team Qhubeka Assos same time
3. Elia Viviani (Ita) Cofidis
4. Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora – Hansgrohe
5. Fernando Gaviria Rendon (Col) UAE Team Emirates
6. Matteo Moschetti (Ita) Trek – Segafredo
7. Andrea Pasqualon (Ita) Intermarche – Wanty – Gobert – Materiaux
8. Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Jumbo – Visma
9. Manuel Belletti (Ita) Elolo-Kometa Cycling Team
10. David Cimolai (Ita) Israel Start-up Nation
General classification
1. Alessandro De Marchi (Ita) Israel Start-up Nation 17hrs 57mins 45secs
2. Louis Vervaeke (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix +42secs
3. Nelson Oliveira (Por) Movistar Team +48secs
4. Attila Valter (Hun) Groupama-FDJ +1min 00secs
5. Nicolas Edet (Fra) Cofidis +1min 15secs
6. Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana-Premier Tech +1min 24secs
7. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Deceuninck-QuickStep +1min 28secs
8. Alberto Bettiol (Ita) EF Education-Nippo +1min 37secs
9. Hugh Carthy (GB) EF Education-Nippo +1min 38secs
10. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers +1min 39secs
