Olav Kooij got a massive assist from teammate Wout van Aert to capture his first stage win at the 2025 Giro d'Italia, emerging from a furious, high-speed fight in the final kilometers of stage 12 to take his 40th career victory. Van Uden settled for second, with Ineos Grenadiers' Ben Turner nicking points leader Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) for third. It's Kooij's second career Giro stage win, after taking a stage of the 2024 edition.
Despite the frenetic finale that included a right-hand turn inside the final kilometer, there was only one minor crash, and overall leader Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) easily kept his pink jersey as the general classification remained unchanged.
Brief results
[race_result id=13 stage_id=86451 count=10 gc=0 year=2025]General Classification
[race_result id=13 stage_id=86451 count=10 gc=10 year=2025]How it happened
- With a lumpy first half and a flat second portion, stage 12 of the Giro d'Italia, a 172 km ride from Modena to Viadana, was always going to be an unfair battle between the breakaway teams and the sprinters. The early move got away as expected, but with just three riders from small teams – Arkéa-B&B Hotels' Giosuè Epis, Andrea Pietrobon of Polti-VisitMalta and Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani-Faizane) – and the pack keeping the gap to two minutes, a catch was nearly inevitable.
- After some TV time, the peloton hauled past Pietrobon, the final survivor, on the first pass of the finish line, with 26 km to go.
- With gruppo compatto, as the RAI television graphic goes, a hodge-podge of sprinters' teams took turns essentially daring each other to set the pace. The primary actors were usual suspects like Lidl-Trek, working for triple stage winner and points competition leader Mads Pedersen; Soudal-Quick Step, and Visma-Lease a Bike, hunting for a first win for Olav Kooij, but smaller teams like Cofidis and Q36.5 were also in the mix.
- As usual, GC riders' teams were vigilant, as Del Toro's UAE Team Emirates-XRG outfit and others tried to keep their leaders up front and out of trouble. Speeds over the last circuit were routinely over 50 km/h, effectively killing the chance of any attempts at late breakaways.
- Into the final 5 km, the pace ramped up even higher, with a furious fight between the dueling sprint teams. At just over 1 km to go, Lidl's train finally fell apart, leaving Visma uncontested at the front. But in a worrying sign for Kooij, he was down to just one rider. Fortunately for him, that rider was Wout van Aert, winner of stage 9.
- The Belgian superstar led through the final corner, and when Picnic-PostNL's Casper van Uden started his jump early, Kooij smoothly switched wheels, capitalizing on Van Uden's acceleration to slingshot around him and hold off a hard-charging trio of rivals to take his first win of the 2025 Giro and his 40th career victory.
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