German Denz solos to Giro stage 18 win
May 29 (Reuters) - Nico Denz won stage 18 of the Giro d'Italia on Thursday as the German rider rode solo to victory in the final stages of the 144 km ride from Morbegno to Cesano Maderno while overall leader Isaac del Toro retained his pink jersey.
In the shortest racing stage of this year's Giro, Denz was part of a breakaway group of 11 riders and the Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe rider attacked with 11km to go on the final flat section of the stage.
The 31-year-old held a 32-second lead with five kilometres left and by the time he crossed the finish line with his arms outstretched, he had finished a minute ahead of the chasing pack for the third Giro stage win of his career.
Victory allowed the team to celebrate a first stage win at this year's Giro after they had seen pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic abandon the race on Tuesday following a crash in treacherous conditions in stage 16.
Team Polti's Mirco Maestri finished second after beating Edward Planckaert of Alpecin-Deceuninck in the sprint.
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Times
2 hours ago
- Times
What I learnt about Englishness in this bafflingly undervalued region
On the day I drive home from my bike ride, the village of Bibury in the Cotswolds shelves plans for a parking area for 130 cars and 10 coaches. As many as 20,000 visitors arrive in the village each weekend. 'We want to manage the overtourism we've already got,' a resident tells BBC Radio Gloucestershire. People keep coming, the reporter says, because social media promotes Bibury as quintessential pastoral England. I think: they're in the wrong county, though. For I've just come from quintessential pastoral England, having spent two days on lanes unknown to coach tours, among shapely hills, small farms and slumbering villages. This is the finest full-spectrum evocation of the English countryside I've experienced, in a region where the words of William Blake seem to drift through hedgerows. And it lies not in the Cotswolds but further west, in Herefordshire, a county that in 2023 received 5.87 million visitors to the Cotswolds' 35 million. I hadn't really come for a deep dive into Englishness. I'd arrived to go cycling. In early May White Heron, a collection of luxury farm stays on the Hilditch family's estate 20 miles northwest of Hereford, launched guided bike tours. 'There's lots of cycling around Ludlow and Hereford but no one comes here,' explains Gio Hilditch, husband of the farm's owner, Jo, once I arrive. 'Here' is the Welsh Marches, a fold in the map between England and Wales that Gio has been exploring with his cycling buddies for 30 years. If that suggests a trip pistoning along back lanes, fear not. First, this one uses ebikes (Ridgeback X2 hybrids, cycle geeks). Second, it's billed as a meander — over two days you cover just 30 miles. The aim is rather to reveal a bafflingly undervalued region. Before we begin, Jo wants to show off her estate. So would you if you were a fourth-generation farmer of 700 acres, scion of a great-grandfather who led an association of Hereford cattle, the hardy bovine that put the 'cow' into the cowboys of the American west. On a still evening the three of us pedal around the estate, and I learn about sustainable chicken rearing (who knew chicken poo alone could fuel three 600kW boilers?) and the minutiae of growing blackcurrants ('they all go to Ribena'). In avenues of apple blossom I'm reminded of weddings. Wood pigeons coo. Pheasants cough in hedgerows. As the sun sizzles on the horizon, nature holds its breath in a moment of quiet magic. Led by Jo and Gio, our five-strong peloton gathers the next morning. Two are regular cyclists, the rest of us are part-time pedallers. From the off it's terrific. Either side of a stripe of grass, we cycle two abreast on lanes frothy with cow parsley and bluebells. The town of Kington appears. Handsome streets, a butcher in a blue apron laying sausages in the window, a whiff of patchouli incense: it's the first intimation of the border country's split personality, equal parts yeoman farmers and alternative downshifters. What unites them is a love of this green and pleasant land. Outside Kington we ride across the roof of the Marches. The Offa's Dyke Path along Hergest Ridge provides euphoric widescreen views. Hills recede into a blue-grey haze below. A skylark warbles unseen. When we pause I realise there's no growl of internal combustion engine, no whine of passing jet. It feels a privilege to be here. • 15 of the most beautiful places in England Denys Corbett Wilson would have recognised the view, if not the silence. In 1912 he laid a wager with Damer Leslie Allen over which of them would be the first person to fly from England to Ireland. Wilson soared over Hergest Ridge before making an emergency landing at the hamlet of Colva, in what is now Powys, due to low-grade castor oil in his engine. Having waited there for his mechanic, he took off again and landed in Wexford five days later. Allen, meanwhile, was seen crossing at Holyhead — and then never seen again. Forty years earlier the country diarist Francis Kilvert visited Colva on a stroll. Along the drover's road he carried a dozen biscuits, two apples, a flask of wine and opera glasses, and reached a ''poor humble dear little whitewashed church sequestered among its ancient yews'. We ride the same road to find the historian Joe Kerr (he's heard all the gags) outside St David's: still dear, still with its yews. 'It's 13th century but by tradition was founded by the great saint himself. The church at Glascwm was and that's six miles away,' Kerr says. St David's probably replaced an earlier Celtic church, he adds. 'This feels like a place used for centuries.' • 11 of the best cycling routes in the UK For we have crossed into Wales and the land crackles with Celtic magic. In St Peter's Church at Bryngwyn, three miles south, there are kneelers embroidered with otters and plough horses, and a prehistoric standing stone roughly carved with crosses. Birds sing a hosannah outside. We travel onwards via lanes that tie themselves into knots and then we hop over the River Arrow on bridges seemingly out of Postman Pat. One slips us back into England on a track to a farmyard where a cockerel flees into a hay barn. A door in a red-brick wall opens into paradise: a hammock swings in a small orchard, swallows swoop and chitter, the Wye Valley unrolls a lush carpet to bosky slopes. Corisande Albert and her husband, Angus Grahame, appear with glasses of chilled pear cider. With their Cabalva perry estate, the farming-pottery couple hope to rehabilitate a once-popular drink. Perry farmers perfected the champagne method when fizz was just a twinkle in Dom Pérignon's eye, according to Grahame. 'Every farm once had a little orchard for perry,' he says. 'We're trying to make it approachable again.' I can't see why it isn't already. Dangerously quaffable, half the strength of wine, it's an ideal summer aperitif, which only goes to show how insouciant we can be about our heritage. Maybe it's the booze and the delicious lunch eaten outside off Albert's plates. Perhaps it's just the view. Either way, this feels as close to the good life as it gets in Britain. • 13 of the most luxurious places to stay in Herefordshire Gio spoils it rather with talk of 'Kill Pitch'. Its steep hill arrives beyond Hay-on-Wye (bunting, books and a queue outside Shepherds Ice Cream parlour). As the incline steepens I flick to the ebike's highest power and cruise uphill. Literally no sweat. I sit on the terrace of a spacious safari tent at Drovers Rest drinking a rehydration beer I don't truly deserve. The next day is May Day. In the half-light of dawn some of us pedal to Arthur's Stone, a neolithic tomb on the valley summit. A ragtag band have beaten us to it. Morris dancers jingle and clack, and a man in a costume of green ribbons like leaves pipes the sun's rise. Scratch the topsoil of Merrie England hereabouts and a seam of pagan tradition lies beneath. Who's to say they're wrong? When we return later that morning the Golden Valley glows in morning light and the Skirrid, aka the Holy Mountain, is an enigmatic pyramid above hills. It's scenery to bring out the mystic in anyone. The rest of that day is one of images. Hillsides festive with white apple blossom. Silver-green willows trailing in the Wye during a dip at Bredwardine. Among the wonky black and white houses of Weobley village square are two old boys in braces. They lean on a muddy SUV to discuss a friend's apple-growing in accents you could chew on: 'It's like a ewe and a lamb, see? The one always knows the other.' We process into Pembridge, then slip behind the 17th-century New Inn and into a handsome cobbled square. A picnic bench has been laid with a white tablecloth, fine tableware, a tureen of soup and a platter of venison pâté and sourdough bread. Lunch has arrived before us. To be honest, I'm reluctant to tell you about any of this. So many of the qualities we seek from foreign travel are outside the back door in Herefordshire — not just obvious things, like fresh air and views, but proud regional cuisines and a sense of lives well lived in harmony with timeless landscapes. Too many of us are too quick to ignore at home what we would eulogise about abroad. Who'd have guessed all it took to find them was a bike? Millions of visitors a year come to find something similar in the Cotswolds. Fortunately Herefordshire is rubbish at providing coach Stewart was a guest of White Heron, which has three nights' half-board from £750pp, including ebike hire and luggage transfer ( Next public trip June 10-13 and September 23-26; private trips can be arranged
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
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Would you wear this to a wedding? Brittany Hockley steals the spotlight and risks a wardrobe malfunction in a daring red dress slit to the crotch at friend's nuptials in Italy
Brittany Hockley stole the spotlight as she attended a friend's wedding in a daring red dress over the weekend. The Aussie radio host took to Instagram on Sunday to share several happy snaps from singer Steffani Milan and footballer Moritz Jenz's nuptials, which were held in Tuscany, Italy. The 37-year-old almost risked a major wardrobe malfunction in a figure-hugging scarlet dress featuring a very risque split at the thigh. The frock, which boasted a high neckline and long sleeves, was slashed all the way to the crotch, showing off the former Bachelor star's long, trim pins. She wore her hair in a slicked back bun and donned dainty gold and diamond jewellery, letting her eye-catching dress take centre stage. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. 'Celebrating love, with my love, in the beautiful Tuscan sun,' she captioned the post, which was fronted with a loved-up snap of her and her Swiss footballer fiancé Benjamin Siegrist. The couple's upcoming nuptials, which will be held in Bali, have been the talk of the town of late, especially considering the notable absences from their wedding invitations. Sources close to the pair reveal that several of Brittany's fellow I'm A Celebrity 2024 'campmates' including Skye Wheatley, Callum Hole, and Denise Drysdale did not make the cut. Despite the show's portrayal of a tight-knit group, insiders suggest that behind the scenes, not all relationships were as harmonious. 'The show presents a united front, but the reality is, not everyone clicked,' a source revealed. 'Brittany has chosen to keep her wedding intimate, inviting those she's closest to,' the insider said. Adding to the intrigue, Brittany recently shared a lighthearted anecdote about her wedding invitations causing confusion among guests due to Aussie slang. On her Life Uncut podcast, she recounted how the phrase 'no thongs' led to some hilarious misunderstandings among international invitees. Sources close to the pair reveal that several of Brittany's fellow I'm A Celebrity 2024 'campmates' including Skye Wheatley, Callum Hole, and Denise Drysdale did not make the cut As the big day approaches, all eyes will be on the guest list and the potential for any surprise appearances or notable absences. Brittany announced her engagement to Ben, 32, earlier this year. Brittany, who formerly described herself as 'the perpetually single host', had been dating Ben long-distance for eight months when he popped the question. In her post, Brittany expressed her love for her new fiancé, writing: 'In any lifetime it's a YES! Just two people loving each other for the rest of our lives.'
Reuters
10 hours ago
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Cremonese promoted to Serie A with playoff win over Spezia
June 1 (Reuters) - Cremonese were promoted to Serie A after a two-year absence, following a 3–2 victory at Spezia in the second leg of their playoff final on Sunday. After the first game ended goalless on Thursday, the second match turned into a thriller as a double from Manuel De Luca and a goal from Michele Collocolo gave Cremonese a three-goal lead. Spezia rallied with two late goals but could not overcome the deficit and will remain in Serie B for the next season. The Lombardy club Cremonese, relegated in 2023, will now join Pisa and Sassuolo in returning to Italian top flight, taking the places of Empoli, Venezia and Monza, who were relegated at the end of the season. "This season will be remembered for all we achieved: with sheer determination and plenty of drive, we secured promotion," Cremonese manager Giovanni Stroppa told DAZN.
