"It was a real relief when I raised my arms," Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) said of the feeling as he crossed the finish line ahead of the Giro d'Italia peloton in Messina on Wednesday.

"This was something I had been waiting for for a long time," he said.

De Mare has won at least one stage in each of his last three Giro d'Italia appearances, but Wednesday's hard-fought stage 5 victory was his first since last fall's Paris-Tour. It made sense for Demare, who has won 85 races since turning pro in 2012, to feel that the time between victories was too long.

"Between Paris and Tours last year, I raced quite a few races.

However, Demare admitted that he spent a lot of time preparing his strategy for the group sprint on stage 5, and the first piece of the jigsaw puzzle that would make up victory was put in place fairly early in the race on the Portella Mandrazzi climb in the middle of the race. [Dangerous challengers such as Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alfa Vinyl) and Caleb Yuan (Lotto Soudal) were both eliminated from contention on the long second-class climb.

Demare also fell on the climb, but was able to regain contact with the main group by a much smaller margin than the Britons and Australians. But then, he recalled, it was only part of the roadmap to victory ahead of Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel Premier Tech).

"When I heard that Euan and Cavendish had fallen on the climb, I had to keep flat out on the run-in to keep them away. I had already completed a great descent so I was able to get back to the main group."

On how he overcame his uphill woes, DeMare said he was mentally prepared because his team had studied the stage in detail beforehand. However, even when he struggled on the climb, he was able to successfully navigate through the worst moments of crisis.

DeMare said. "I knew it was going to be difficult, and I knew the other teams were going to try to push me over the edge. But I didn't fall apart completely, I made sure I cracked little by little, which allowed me to recover more quickly on the summit and the first part of the descent."

With Cavendish and Ewan out of the equation and the remaining sprinters on terms, the next problem for Grupama-FDJ was to solve the sprint itself. Here, Demare faced a new challenge. His usual lead-out man, Jacopo Guarnieri, struggled on the mid-race climb and, like Cavendish and Ewan, finished more than 12 minutes behind.

However, DeMare and Grupama-FDJ had a plan B in place, with Dutch teammate Ramon Schinkeldam filling in for Guarnieri and providing the perfect leadout for DeMare.

"I had to adapt for sure, but I really worked hard for the finish. The last few kilometers, I knew all the corners and everything," DeMare recalled.

"Ramon was in really great condition and it was a very clean sprint. And so I finished."

Guarnieri will be able to help Demare, who leads the points chase for the Giro he already won in 2020, on the flat course to Scalea, a coastal resort in western Calabria, on Thursday.

But with fast men like Cavendish and Ewan, who fell in Sicily, looking to make an impact before the three non-flat stages after Friday, the likely group sprint opponents are also likely to be stiff.

Besides, Gaviria, who suffered machine trouble just as he was about to open the sprint in Messina, will also be sporting revenge. Sicily was won by De Mare, but it certainly wasn't a Giro sprint.