Giro d'Italia: Greipel continues Grand Tour streak

Andre Greipel timed his sprint finish to perfection to take victory in stage five of the Giro d'Italia and continue his impressive run of Grand Tour stage wins that stretches back to the 2007 Vuelta a Espana.

The Lotto-Soudal rider worked superbly with team-mates Jurgen Roelandts and Giacomo Nizzolo in the final six kilometres of the route from Praia a Mare to Benevento to stretch the peloton, before leaving his rivals in his wake with a stunning sprint, extending a sequence of having managed a stage victory in every Grand Tour he has entered since 2007.

Arnaud Demare (FDJ) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bardiani) had made the initial moves for the stage win when the finish line came into sight, but once Greipel found his rhythm there was no stopping him.

Behind the German, Bob Jungels (Etixx-Quick Step) was the man to profit in the general classification standings as he took four seconds out of Tom Dumoulin's lead, the Giant-Alpecin rider coming home within the peloton after a gruelling 233km.

Wednesday's undulating route offered something to everyone within the peloton, Damiano Cunego (Nippo – Vini Fantini) maintaining his king of the mountains lead as he reached the summit of the only category climb first.

Daniel Oss (BMC Racing) – part of the four-man breakaway after that ascent – took maximum points in both sprints, seeing him climb into third in the classification behind Giacomo Berlato (Nippo – Vini Fantini) and leader Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo)

Along with Amets Txurruka (Orica-GreenEdge), Alexander Foliforov (Gazprom-Rusvelo) and Pavel Brutt (Tinkoff), Oss led until the final kilometres of the day, the quartet stretching their lead as wide as six minutes.

Oss was even able to recover from a crash on one of the many descents to stay with the leading group, but their hopes of going the distance were quickly extinguished by the peloton.

Having swallowed them up, the teams began to jostle for position, all except Etixx-Quick-Step, who dropped back to help Marcel Kittel after he had been dropped.

Lotto-Soudal immediately hit the front with Greipel, Nizzolo and Roelandts all taking turns on the front.

That laid the perfect platform for Greipel, and he showed he still had pace in his legs to cross the line and claim a record third win for Germany in a single Giro.