The flattest stage of the Giro arrives before the mountain trio of the weekend. This will be the last opportunity for the sprinters to get something out of the race, and most of them have done nothing in the Italian race. The wind could also prove challenging today, as the route follows the sea from south to north.
A group of 5 riders opened a big gap easily. They had 8’ 35’’ on the bunch after the only hill of the route. The most relevant riders of the break were: Alberto Contador (Euskaltel), Jurgen Roelandts (quickstep) and Stefan van Dijk (Rabobank).
However, Saxo Bank and Garmin were very keen on working for their teammates and the peloton caught the break 27 kilometers before the finish in Ravenna. It is curious how Saxo Bank made a lot of domestiques work a lot in front of the bunch, as Dupont may have need of them in the tougher stages.
Euskaltel had the strongest train with 3 kilometers to go, as Taylor Phinney was towing Francisco Ventoso. Peter Sagan took the wheel of the Spaniard. Alongside were the trains of Lampre, with Pozzovivo ahead of John Degenkolb and Alexandre Vinokourov, and Discovery.
Ryder Hesjedal (Discovery) made a great job in the penultimate kilometer to put Brajkovic ahead of everyone else. The Slovenian was trailed by Jakob Fuglsang and Sacha Modolo, while Vinokourov and Farrar tried to gain positions.
Janez Brajkovic wins in Ravenna! It is incredible how the Discovery rider wins in every terrain type this year. Behind him arrived much better sprinters like Jakob Fuglsang, Tyler Farrar or Alexandre Vinokourov. Fuglsang is being denied the win, as he also came second on yesterday’s stage in Castelfidardo.
The GC didn’t have any changes, so Pieter Weening has an advantage of 1’ 30’’ ahead of the three most decisive stages of the race.
The most important stages of the Giro start with a trip to Austria. The riders will cross the border on the kilometer 80, the top of the Passo Monte di Croce Carnico. On Austria, the riders will have 4 more climbs. The toughest climbs will be the Iselsbergpass and the Kasereck, before the finish in the Glocker Haus. The truly climbers stages begin with the easiest of the trio, but it will be a tough test nevertheless.
The early break formed after a series of attacks in the first kilometers of the stage. The group of 11 riders that took shape included Oliver Zaugg (BMC), Jakob Fuglsang (Radioshack), Thomas de Gendt (Quickstep), Filippo Pozzato (Lampre) and Tejay van Garderen (Garmin). At the border with Austria, with 90 km to go, they had 6' 50'' on a trio that attacked in the Monte Croce Carnico: Phinney, Andy Schleck and Greipel. The bunch was 8' 10'' back.
The battle among the favorites surprisingly started at the last ramps of the Iselsbergpass. Chris Froome (HTC) set a high pace in front of the peloton and left only 16 riders in the favorites group. Hubert Dupont was caught napping and lost the wheel of this group, along with other riders like Brajkovic, Ruijgh or Nocentini. The break still had 4' 15'' at the KoM sprint.
The break reaches the Kasereck climb with only 8 riders and few hopes of winning the stage. The flat kilometers between the Iselsbergpass and the Kasereck have been a chase between the groups of Weening and Dupont. The favorites lose 2' 45'' to the break and the bunch loses 4' 10''.
Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil) is the first to attack from the main group and try to bridge the gap to Weening's group. Meanwhile, Hubert Dupont is nowhere to be seen and he is already losing 2 minutes with the favorites.
Levi Leipheimer (Discovery) attacks hard with 3 kilometers to the top. He soon opens a nice gap as he overtakes men from the break. There is only Westra and Zaugg ahead of the American. Meanwhile, Mollema reached the favorites group and Dupont joined forces with Menchov to try to bridge the gap.
Leipheimer is leading the race as they cross the KoM sprint with Pieter Weening in his tail. Behind them, the BMC duo of Oliver Zaugg and Mikel Nieve lose 50 seconds; Xavi Tondo is 1' 20'' back; 2 minutes back Bauke Mollema; 2' 15'' behind the favorites group with Dupont, Hincapie and Devenyns.
Hubert Dupont (Saxo Bank) leads a group of 9 riders as they start the last climb towards Glockner Haus. With 4 kilometers remaining the French is still losing 2' 20'' on Leipheimer and Weening. Dupont will be very disappointed at the end of today's stage.
Weening tries to leave Leipheimer behind within the last 2 kilometers of the stage. The differences have grown behind them, as Nieve and Tondo are losing 1' 25''; Zauug is +1 50''; Dupont +2' 10'' and Mollema +2'25''.
Pieter Weening wins in the Glossglockner! The Dutch is in great shape ahead of the most important stages of the race and has made today a huge leap ahead in the GC. Right after him came Levi Leipheimer, who could hold surprisingly well to the wheel of Weening.
Hubert Dupont arrives in the 5th place in the stage along with Bauke Mollema and Oliver Zaugg and losing 2' 25'' with Weening. Before the trio, two Spaniards (Nieve and Tondo) had crossed the line 30'' earlier than the French. The group of favorites, with 15 riders, arrived 3' 12'' behind the winner of the stage.
Pieter Weening is the clear dominator of the Giro and he showed it today. During part of the climb to the Kasereck it seemed that Leipheimer would get a nice advantage over everyone else but when the Dutch reacted closed the gap easily. Leipheimer is now 2nd overall, 2' 36'' behind, and Dupont 3rd, +4' 03''.
The second straight mountain stage takes us to the toughest climb of the Giro. The Monte Zoncolan is one of the toughest climbs in the world featuring 9.8 kilometers at an average gradient of 12.4%. The climb was supposed to be preceded by another giant, the Monte Crostis, but the UCI judges decided its descent was too dangerous. Therefore, the route is fairly easy before the last climb and the group will probably very numerous at its base.
Rigoberto Uran (Sky) was the most interested in the KoM points among the three riders in the break. Robbie McEwen (Garmin) and Jurgen Roelandts (Quickstep) were riding with him from the start of the stage. At the Passo della Mauria, 95 km to go, they had 7’ 40’’ on the bunch.
The main group took things fairly easy today, slowly cutting the advantage of the break but not with a frenzy pace. That quietness ended with an attack by Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil) in the Tualis to get the mountain points. Chris Froome had been setting the pace in this penultimate climb and that started a lot of movements in the last part of the climb.
Mollema overtook the men of the break in the last kilometer of the Tualis, going first through the KoM sprint. Xavi Tondo and Rigoberto Uran followed him, with the Colombian suffering a lot from the effort.
A group of only 37 riders started the Zoncolan in the front group. Hubert Dupont (Saxo Bank) started to work in front of the peloton from the base of the climb. The French has to regain a lot of time on Weening, so he wants to make the race as hard as possible.
Pieter Weening keeps following the wheel of Hubert Dupont as the French continues in front of the group. Only 13 riders manage to follow the pace of Dupont with 6 kilometers remaining. The main rider that couldn’t follow is Denis Menchov, 10th overall.
The stage gets more interesting with 3 km to go, as Pieter Weening starts to lose the wheel of Dupont. Other riders suffer further back the group and Mikel Nieve seems like the third with the most strength.
Dupont managed to go alone and crossed the last km banner with 30 seconds on Weening, Nieve and Mollema. Leipheimer wasn’t feeling as good as yesterday and could only stay with a group of 10 riders 1’ 05’’ behind Dupont. Meanwhile, Denis Menchov was losing 3’ 10’’ already.
Hubert Dupont wins in Monte Zoncolan! The French bounced back from yesterday’s disappointment to win in the toughest climb of the race. This is the second stage win for the French in this year’s Giro. Behind Dupont, Weening was second and Nieve third, both 53’’ back and Mollema arrived 4th 1’ 07’’ behind.
Levi Leipheimer could only cross the finish line 1’ 34’’ behind Dupont. That means the French is now 2nd overall 17 seconds ahead of the American. Dupont will have to work a lot to regain the 3’ 06’’ he is losing right now in the GC but fortunately for him there is still a lot of mountains to be climbed in the Giro.
Further back, Denis Menchov arrived 3’ 41’’ behind Dupont and lost the young jersey in the way. Bart de Clerq now holds it by a 9 seconds margin on the Russian.
The stage between Conegliano and Gardeccia is probably the most expected of the year by the fans of cycling. A marathon of mountains will take the riders through the climbs to Pincavallo, Forcella Cibiana, Passo Giau, Passo Fedaia and Gardeccia Val di Fassa. Anything that is not big differences among the favorites will be a surprise in the toughest stage of the year.
The first colossus of the day is climbed right at the start of the stage: Piancavallo. It is an hors categorie climb that the bunch took very easy. At its top, 190 km to the finish, Stefan Van Dijk (Rabobank) and Kenny van Hummel (Vacansoleil) had 15 seconds on Carlos Barredo (Katusha). John Gadret and Mathias Frank were 1’ 25’’ behind and the peloton crossed the KoM sprint 6’ 30’’ late.
Pierre Rolland (Quickstep) also tried a long break. He attacked in the start of the Forcella Cibiana, the second climb of the day. Ahead of him, the five riders in front had joined and led the French by 5’ 45’’. The peloton was 3’ 05’’ further back.
The men in the breaks suffered a lot in the flat between the Cibiana and the Passo Giau. The Passo Giau is the highest point of the race, and therefore is the Cima Coppi of this year’s Giro. Some quality attacks happened at the beginning of the mountain, the best of them being that of Jean-Christophe Peraud. Halfway through the climb, with 8 km to the top the order was:
John Gadret
+ 22’’ Pierre Rolland
+1’ 20’’ Jean-Christophe Peraud
+2’ 10’’ Domenico Pozzovivo, Tiago Machado, Andy Schleck and Laurens Ten Dam
+4’ 55’’ Peloton
Xavi Tondo and Bauke Mollema move in the last kilometer of the Giau, but it turns out to be only for the mountain points. Peraud was first at the top of the mountain with 4’ 20’’ on the peloton.
HTC and Discovery set the pace in the climb of the Passo Fedaia, the toughest climb of the day, especially with Chris Froome and Cadel Evans. That reduces the group of favorites a lot. Peraud is still leading with 5 km to the top: 2’ 15’’ on Machado and 3’ 05’’ on the group of favorites.
Hubert Dupont, Pieter Weening and Mikel Nieve left the other favorites behind in the last kilometers of the Fedaia. They cut Peraud’s advantage to only 25’’ at the top. A group of 8 favorites came 1’ 05’’ behind the French. Cadel Evans, Bart de Clerq and Denis Menchov are even further back.
Steven Kruijswijk (Movistar) attacked from the group and cut the lead of the top 4 to only 20 seconds at the start of Gardeccia. The rest of the favorites start the climb around 1 minute behind the leaders.
The group of favorites joined halfway through the climb to Gardeccia. Dupont and Weening were looking at each other so the pace let the others join the fight. With 2 kilometers to go the attacks began again, with Dupont the first to start.
Dupont and Weening opened a gap again, with Nieve trailing them. They were already at the last kilometer, so the differences in the GC weren’t going to be huge between the two contenders. In the group behind, some riders were cracking, like Tondo and Vanendert.
Hubert Dupont wins in Gardeccia Val di Fassa! The French wins the second straight stage, but he hasn’t been able to put much time on Weening. The Dutch arrived 15 seconds behind today, so he keeps a nice lead of 2’ 47’’ ahead of the last week.
Behind the duo, the fight for the third spot of the podium seems to be between Mikel Nieve and Leipheimer. Nieve jumped to third today, only 2 seconds ahead of the American. Mollema and Cunego were 4th and 5th in the stage losing 1’ 23’’ on Dupont. The domination of the race by Weening is still very big, as he still leads the points and mountain classifications.
Janez Barjkovic's first big performance came in the first year of the story, as he recorded a 2nd overall place in the Tour de France behind Hubert Dupont. However, he has since performed much better in hilly classics or short tours than in the mountains.
The Slovenian had to wait one full season to get his first win, the third stage in Tirreno - Adriatico. He would then go on to win another stage in the Italian race. However, by the end of the season he had become the best rider without major wins. He had been in the top 5 of the Tour de France, Tirreno - Adriatico, Liege - Bastogne - Liege, Tour Down Under and Plouay. However, he won his first major victory in the GP Cycliste de Montreal in the closing stages of the season.
This year has been the explosion of Brajkovic as a superstar. Only in the first part of the year he took the GC of the Vuelta la Pais Vasco and La Fleche Wallonne. He also took stage wins at Paris - Nice and Pais Vasco. This has put him first in the World Tour rankings so far and it will be difficult to remove him from the top position.
Brajkovic has won already his main target for the year, the Fleche Wallonne. His season has been so good so far that even if he did nothing else it would be considered fantastic. Maybe his next target for following years will be a good performance in a Grand Tour, as his climbing skills have improved lately.
Wins:
2010
- 1st Stages 2 and 6 Tirreno - Adriatico
- 1st GP Cycliste de Montreal
2011
- 1st Stage 5 Paris - Nice
- 1st Stage 3 Vuelta al Pais Vasco
- 1st Vuelta al Pais Vasco
- 1st Points Jersey Vuelta al Pais Vasco
- 1st La Fleche Wallonne
- 1st Stages 6 and 12 Giro di Italia
Other notable results:
- 2nd 2009 Tour de France
- 5th 2010 Tour Down Under
- 3rd 2010 Tirreno - Adriatico
- 4th 2010 Liege - Bastogne - Liege
- 2nd 2010 Gp Ouest France - Plouay
- 2nd 2011 Paris - Nice
The second rest day is followed by a time trial to the sky station of Nevegal. This Giro is so biased towards the climbers that even the time trials have to be in a first category climb. The favorites will therefore be the main riders in the GC, as they are fittest and all of them climbers.
Jean-Christophe Peraud (Radioshack) was supposed to do a good time trial, but he doesn’t seem to have fully recovered from the fall in the Etna. He finished 21st, 11 seconds behind the early leader Peter Kennaugh.
Jelle Vanendert (Lotto) is fighting for the 5th overall, but his rivals were all setting worse times in the intermediate. He couldn’t improve the best time so far, set by Marco Marcato, but the Belgian matched the Italian’s time and got 3rd provisional place so far.
George Hincapie (BMC) was very similar to Vanendert, only 2 seconds slower in the finish to grab the 4th place so far. The American was supposed to be the leader of BMC but has been surprised by the terrific form shown by Mikel Nieve, who is shadowing his performance.
The local hero, Damiano Cunego (Lampre), didn’t have very good legs today but he managed to control the loss. Cunego has never been an outstanding time trialist, but he crossed the line 9th, 4 seconds behind Marcato.
Dries Devenyns (Quickstep) was good enough for what he expected before the start of the stage. He was 13th in the finish line 6 seconds behind Marcato. Devenyns is doing a great Giro but there is a question mark on the performance of the Belgian in the last week, as he may suffer more than the other in the Top 10.
Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil) is the first among those fighting for the fifth place. The Dutch widened the gap he enjoys on the others as he recorded a best time of 30’ 04’’ at the finish in Nevegal. He was 3 seconds better than Marco Marcato.
Levi Leipheimer (Discovery) was even better than Mollema, as he crossed the line 3 seconds better in 30’ 01’’. The American wants to keep fighting for the third place during the last week of the Giro.
Mikel Nieve (BMC) was also in the front group of riders and set the third best time, only 3 seconds behind Levi Leipheimer. However, those 3 seconds made him lose the third place overall. Nieve is now 1 second behind Leipheimer in the GC.
Hubert Dupont (Saxo Bank) did wonders again in the points jersey. He could match Leipheimer’s time in the intermediate point but his climbing was much better, as he finished first with a time of 29’ 53’’. He was the first rider to go under the 30 minutes mark. If Weening doesn’t improve his time, this is going to be the third straight stage victory for the French.
Pieter Weening (HTC) did his best but was unable to beat Dupont. The Dutch was 2nd in the finish line, 4 seconds behind Dupont. This means that Dupont has now three straight stage wins. He is slowly cutting the advantage in the GC, but at this rate he won’t get to the first place in Milano. The difference is now 2’42’’ between the top 2.
The last week of the Giro is for climbers and only climbers. The stage today is much easier than the others, but it has the long Passo del Tonale before the gentle climb to Aprica. It the pack is not ambitious, maybe a break can make it. However, considering that we are in the third week, the long stage and the mountains, a decent break will be needed.
A group of 6 riders tried to make a break count. The most relevant riders were Linus Gerdemann (Radioshack), Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Giovanni Visconti (Lampre). A few kilometers before the Tonale HTC started to chase and the difference dropped to only 5’ 15’’ before the climb.
Chris Froome (HTC) set the pace for Pieter Weening in the climb to the Tonale, but it wasn’t a very high rhythm. The break broke loose on the climb and Freire went first through the KoM sprint, 2 minutes before the bunch.
The climb to Aprica was rather relaxed for the peloton, but they were able to catch all the riders from the break. Jean-Christophe Peraud (Radioshack) managed to get some mountain points but that was all the fight that happened in today’s climbs.
The fight that didn’t happen in the climb happened in the fast descent towards the finish line in Tirano. A group of five riders opened a gap: Devenyns, Dupont, Nieve, Weening and Kruijswijk. They had 40 seconds on Peraud and Fuglsang and 1 minute on the peloton. Leipheimer’s podium place was threatened by this attack.
The group of five made it to the finish with a nice advantage of around 1 minute on the bunch. The three fastest riders turned out to be Pieter Weening, Dries Devenyns and Hubert Dupont. With 800 meters remaining they were fairly matched.
Hubert Dupont wins in Tirano! The French wins again, the fourth consecutive stage win and the fifth in the Giro. Behind him arrived Weening and Devenyns, while Nieve and Kruijswijk lost a few meters in the sprint. The bunch arrived 1’ 15’’ behind after losing even more time in the flat last section.
Dupont winning so much is starting to make this Giro boring. The French seems to be on top of his form, but that isn’t making him get closer to Weening. The Dutch is really solid and still has 2’ 38’’ on Dupont.
The end of the Giro is approaching a short stage awaits the riders. The only difficulty is rather big, the Passo di Ganda, so a mass sprint is almost impossible. Possibly a break will get the chance to make the stage count, as the favorites for the GC will surely take things easy.
A fairly big break took shape today with 11 riders, including: Rigoberto Uran (Sky), Lieuwe Westra (Rabobank), Filippo Pozzato (Lampre), Thomas de Gendt (Quickstep), Sacha Modolo (BMC) and Gregory Rast (Discovery). However, they never built a very big gap as with 80 km to go they had 4’ 20’’ on the peloton.
Garmin took the responsibility of the chase. They still trust Alexandre Vinokourov can get something out of this Giro. The Kazakh has been second twice but hasn’t been able to produce a stage win. When they have 4 kilometers to the top of the Passo di Ganda, the bunch still loses 1’ 30’’ on the break.
Sacha Modolo, Daniel Moreno, Filippo Pozzato and Gregory Rast open a small gap in the last kilometer of the Passo di Ganda. They hold 40 seconds on the other riders of the break and 1’ 30’’ on the peloton under the KoM sprint.
Modolo attacked successfully on the descent towards San Pellegrino Terme. With 9 kilometers remaining he was starting to have big chance of winning the stage, as he had 55’’ on the trio of chasers and 1’ 20’’ on the bunch.
Big drama in the last kilometers of the descent, as a mass crash involves the leader Pieter Weening. He does get back in the bike, but he will have trouble getting back in the main group. Other riders involved in the crash were Damiano Cunego, 7th overall, and Janez Brajkovic.
Modolo reaches the last couple of kilometers with only 20 seconds on the bunch. The Italian is going to find it hard to hold the gap in front of the group. The chasing group only has 74 riders due to the massive crash. Taylor Phinney is already towing Francisco Ventoso, with John Degenkolb right behind the Spaniard.
Francisco Ventoso wins in San Pellegrino Terme! Sacha Modolo wasn’t able to hold the gap during the sprint of the group, where the Spaniard was the strongest. Much of the credit has to go to Taylor Phinney, who left Ventoso to fight only against Degenkolb in a great position. This is the second win for Euskaltel in the Giro, after Machado’s win in Rapallo.
Jose JoaquÃn Rojas led the group were the maglia rossa arrived. They lost 1’ 58’’, so Pieter Weening will still keep the leader’s jersey. However, his advantage has been greatly reduced. Hubert Dupont is now 40’’ behind and Mikel Nieve is third 3’ 19’’ behind the Dutch.
There were two abandons due to the injuries sustained in the crash: Tyler Farrar (Saxo Bank) and Maxime Monfort (Lotto). The American sprinter ends a terrible Giro in a very bad way. His best result in Italy was a third in the stage ending in Ravenna.
Two mountain top finishes await the peloton before the final time trial in Milano. The first one is the easy one, as the ascent to Macugnaga is not very steep. The differences are not expected to be huge, even though the riders will face the tough climb to Mottarone first.
A breakaway of 8 riders opened a big gap before the climb to Mottarone. The most important riders in the break were: Sylvain Chavanel (Quickstep), Daniel Moreno (Movistar), Jos Van Emden (Vacansoleil) and Anthony Roux (Liquigas). In the difficult terrain before the first climb of the day the gap was as big as 10' 35''.
Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil) leads the bunch over the top of Mottarone. The chasing pace has decimated a bit the peloton but the break still holds a 6' 20'' lead. Maybe the riders in the break will have a shot for the stage victory today.
The break crosses the last 20 km banner, where the second part of the climb to Macugnaga starts, with only 6 riders. They hold 3' 45''on the bunch, where HTC is setting the pace. It looks like Weening wants to make the race harder to widen his lead in the GC.
Pieter Weening attacks with 15 kilometers to go. A fairly long distance for an attack in the last week by the Dutch. Froome did a great job increasing the pace for him and that meant that other riders were having a hard time reacting. Bauke Mollema was the first to go after the maglia rossa.
Sylvain Chavanel (Quickstep) is alone in front of the race with 8 km to go. However, his pace has decreased a lot and is suffering. Among the favorites, Denis Menchov and Pieter Weening are 2' 30'' behind the French. Meanwhile, the fairly big bunch is losing 3' 10''.
Bauke Mollema managed to get to Weening and Menchov, but the Dutch increased the pace again with 4 km to go. Chavanel has 50'' on Pieter Weening and is losing ground very fast; 1' 05'' on Bauke Mollema and Denis Menchov and 1' 45'' on the group of favorites.
Hubert Dupont tried to react in the last couple of kilometers but didn't seem to have the legs to catch Weening today. The Dutch overtook Chavanel for the lead in the stage and now has 10 seconds on the French and Mollema, 30'' on Menchov and 45'' on Dupont.
Pieter Weening wins in Macugnaga! A great show by the Dutch, who attacked from 15 kilometers to take the win and a good cushion ahead of the last two stages. Weening has shown that the fall that he suffered yesterday didn't hamper his hunger for the overall victory in the Giro. Second in the stage was Bauke Mollema 19 seconds behind, while Dupont and Menchov crossed the line 38'' behind the winner.
Weening now holds a lead of 1' 24'' on Dupont and 4' 24'' on Mikel Nieve. He cannot be complacent because tomorrow's stage is one to make huge differences in the GC if the fight starts at the Finestre. On the white jersey classification, Denis Menchov has cut the lead of Bart de Clerq to only 16'', as the Belgian ended the stage 2 minutes down on the Russian.
A colossus casts its shadow over the penultimate stage of the Giro: the Col delle Finestre. This is the last great climb of the Giro and the last chance for the climbers to show how strong they are in the final weekend. The last part of the Finestre is sterrato, so it’s difficult to know how each rider will adapt to these conditions. Dupont has to turn on the attacking mode to try to win this Giro.
A group of 7 riders was brave enough to try to win the stage through a break. It would be a difficult task considering they had 200 kilometers before starting the Finestre. Among those in the break were Jakob Fuglsang (Radioshack), Tom Danielson (Garmin), Sacha Modolo (BMC) and Tony Gallopin (Quickstep). On the intermediate sprint at Torino they had 7’ 10’’ on the bunch, clearly insufficient to win this stage.
Taylor Phinney (Euskaltel) attacked later in the stage, with around 75 km remaining. His solo effort was really good and he started the Finestre losing 1 minute on the leading duo: Fuglsang and Modolo. The bunch, led by HTC and Saxo Bank, started 2’ 50’’ behind the leaders.
The peloton took things easy in the start of the climb. Chris Froome, Juanjo Cobo and Jure Kocjan share the leading responsibility but the pace is hot really high. Meanwhile, Phinney is already at the front and his lead is now of 2’ 25’’.
Peter Sagan (Vacansoleil) took a few meters on the peloton at the beginning of the sterrato. He kept a small advantage with 4 km to the top, what doesn’t say anything good about the pace. Phinney was already 4 minutes ahead and looking good for the stage win. Meanwhile, Weening was caught napping at the start of the sterrato and lost positions in the group. That made him do an extra effort to recover positions.
Phinney reaches the top of the Finestre with no energy left, so things will be much tougher for him in the last kilometers. Fortunately for him, things aren’t much better behind, as Sagan is still 3’ 15’’ behind and the favorites lose 3’ 50’’.
Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil) attacked in the descent of the Finestre and started Sestriere slightly ahead of the favorites group. Phinney is 2’ 05’’ ahead of the Dutch and 2’ 50’’ ahead of the favorites group (around 30 riders). The main cyclist missing is Damiano Cunego, who had trouble in the Finestre and is losing around 2 minutes on the favorites.
Hubert Dupont attacks with 6 kilometers remaining. The French drags Levi Leipheimer, Dries Devenyns and Pieter Weening behind. The podium of Mikel Nieve is at risk if the Spaniard cannot respond to this attack.
Taylor Phinney suffers on his bike as the leaders of the GC increase the pace. The order is as follows when they are 3 km from the finish:
Phinney
+ 1’ 10’’ Hubert Dupont, Bauke Mollema
+ 1’ 35’’ Dries Devenyns, Levi Leipeimer, Pieter Weening
+ 2’ 15’’ Mikel Nieve
+ 2’ 25’’ Chasing group
Dupont and Mollema sprint in the last kilometer trying to catch Phinney. The American crossed the last kilometer 35 seconds ahead of the duo. Meanwhile, the difference between Weening and Dupont is 35 seconds as well, what would leave the gap in the GC under 1 minute.
Taylor Phinney wins in Sestriere! Euskaltel might be disappointing in the GC, but has already won 3 stages in the Giro. This is a great performance by the Spanish team. Phinney learned how to suffer on the last kilometer and crossed the finish line 7 seconds ahead of Dupont and 16 before Mollema. Devenyns, Weening and Leipheimer were the next to arrive, 45 seconds behind.
Denis Menchov is finishing the Giro very strong. He ended the stage 7th, clearly ahead of Bart de Clerq and takes the white jersey from the Belgian. As the Russian is a better time trialist he almost secured the overall win in that classification.
On the GC, Pieter Weening will face the last time trial 40 seconds ahead of Dupont. As Dupont is marginally better in the time trial it will be very tight. On the fight for the last podium place Leipheimer will start 35 seconds behind Nieve and that gives the American very good odds to get the third place overall.
