Ackermann plans on battling for Giro d'Italia points jersey
Giro d'Italia stage 5 winner Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) has confirmed that he will fight for the points jersey all the way to Verona after taking his second bunch sprint victory in four days.
The German was seven points ahead of Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) in the rankings after stage 4, where Ackermann took fourth, but 24 hours later the German national champion’s advantage in the points ranking has now mushroomed to 28 points, ahead of Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates).
The next opportunities for the bunch sprinters will likely come on stages 8 - although there are some hills in the finale – and then stages 10 and 11. After that, there is only one more likely stage for the sprinters, on stage 18, midway through a plethora of mountain stages.
But at the same time, Ackermann looks to be strong enough at least to fight for all of these stages - and the Bora-hansgrohe sprinter’s confidence is, as he confirmed after stage 5, at an all-time high.
“For sure my goal is to come to Verona and why not try to keep the jersey, I think I’m in good shape, and we will still have some more sprints and some more intermediate sprints. For sure I’m going to try to win it,” he told reporters.
Shivering with the cold after a seriously rain-soaked stage from start to finish, and limiting his questions in the press conference to just three as a result, Ackermann said half-jokingly, “today is a day when cyclists are thinking ‘why am I a cyclist?’ It was really cold and wet conditions, we had to change clothing every 20 or 30 minutes, everyone was freezing and I’m looking forward to taking another shower [to get warm]."
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