5/19/2010

Giro 11 - Petrov powers to victory in L'Aquila

Massive breakaway puts Porte into maglia rosa

Team Katusha's Evgeni Petrov won an extraordinary 11th stage of the Giro dItalia from Lucera to L'Aquila in which the general classification was turned on its head with Richie Porte (Saxo Bank) taking over from Alexandre Vinokourov (Katusha).

Petrov took the stage win with a daring attack in the final kilometre but the major talking point came after 20 kilometres when 56 riders escaped off the front of the peloton and built up a lead of over 17 minutes.

The group contained Porte, Bradley Wiggins (Sky), Carlos Sastre (Cervelo) and Linus Gerdemann (Team Milram) amongst others and with Sky, Caisse d'Epargne, Saxo Bank and Cervelo driving at the front. Astana and Liquigas were unable to reduce the enough to keep the status quo in the overall.

With eight kilometres to go the leaders began to attack each other with David Millar the first to try his luck. He was quickly dragged back with Jrme Pineau (Quick Step) the next to catapult himself off the front. The stage five winners lead wasn't more than a hundred meters before he was swamped up before Sastre and Gerdemann both played their cards.

Under the kilometre banner the German had a small lead but he was caught and passed by Petrov who timed his move perfectly and hung on to take the stage on a tough uphill finish.

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Credit: CyclingNews.com