Nick van der Lijke was able to mix in the Giro d'Italia’s stage 17 sprint into Lugano today. The young Dutchman recorded a 10th place and the team’s GC captain, Steven Kruijswijk retained the mountain classification lead.
 
There were only KOM points at stake early on today, on the Teglio, a climb of the third category. The peloton afterwards travelled over relatively flat roads to the finish on Lake Lugano, where Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) sprinted to the stage win.
 
“It was a tough sprint,” Van der Lijke said after the stage. “Normally, I’d lead-out Moreno Hofland, but he was dropped earlier on. I shifted focus and went for my own chances. I’m glad I could sprint, but unfortunately, I had to close a gap in the run-up to sprint, which wore me out.”
 
“Nick did well,” said sports director Jan Boven. "Moreno was still suffering from his crash yesterday and had to let go of the peloton on the climb at 25 kilometres from the finish. Earlier on, he’d fought back after being dropped in the beginning of the stage.”
 
Kruijswijk will need to bring his A-game on Thursday to defend the lead in the mountain classification. The top of the Monto Ologno, a first category climb, is 35 kilometres before the finish line.
 
“Today, we were lucky an early breakaway picked up all the points,” Boven said. “Tomorrow is going to be different because the climb is in the final kilometres.”