Manuel Belletti (Colnago-CSF Inox) won the thirteenth stage of the Giro d’Italia between Porto Recanati and Cesenatico. The 24-year-old Italian, who was born and raised in this region, timed his attack over the rest of the breakaway group to perfection at the end of the 223km stage. New Zealand sprinter Greg Henderson (Team Sky) was second, with Iban Mayoz (Footon-Servetto) third.
A number of unsuccessful attempts were made to escape the peloton on the pan-flat terrain of the first part of the stage. Finally though a group of 17 riders managed to get away after 70km, the peloton deemed them to be of no danger overall and allowed them to build a gap.
The group was made up of: Danilo Wyss (BMC Racing), Rubens Bertogliati (Androni Giocattoli), Andriy Grivko (Astana), Mathieu Claude (Bbox Bouyges Telecom), Kalle Kriit (Cofidis), Cameron Mayer (Garmin-Transitions), Marco Marzano (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Sebastian Lang (OmegaPharma-Lotto), Mauro Facci (Quick Step), Tom Stamsnijder (Rabobank), Craig Lewis (HTC-Columbia), Joan Horrach and Serguei Klimov (both Katusha), Paul Voss (Milram), Belletti, Henderson and Mayoz.
The best placed rider in the group was Mayoz, 16’14” behind race leader Richie Porte (Saxo Bank) so the group was allowed to build a lead of 7’25” by the stage’s mid point; with 85km to go, as the riders passed the tiny republic of San Marino, the gap was up to over 9 minutes.
The breakaway climbed the 2nd category climb of Perticara together, but as the Liquigas-Doimo led peloton approached it some 8 minutes later Vladimir Karpets (Katusha) jumped away, followed by Linus Gerdemann (Milram). The peloton soon swallowed up again but Karpets continued alone, crossing the summit 35 seconds ahead.
Despite Karpets’ high place overall, 18th position 12’32” behind Porte but very close to most of the real favourites, he was allowed to continue. The break began to fall apart on the steep slopes of the 2nd category Barbotto but Karpets crossed it just 5’07” behind, 1’08” ahead of the peloton. The group reformed on the descent but Horrach, with his team leader chasing behind, dropped back to wait for Karpets.
After a number of attacks in the group Klimov, Mayoz and Kriit escaped and were joined by Stamsnijder with 10km to go. They were soon joined by Meyer and his looked like it may have been the stage-winning break, but the seven more of the others managed to catch them up with less than 5km to go. Meanwhile Karpets had made contact with Horrach and the latter was now pacing his leader to the finish.
Klimov attacked with Facci with around 2km to go and they were quickly joined by Belletti; a few hundred metres later they were also joined by Lewis and Claude. With just over a kilometre to go Lewis attacked alone and the American passed under the red kite with a sizeable lead. Behind him the chase was led by Meyer with most of the rest of the breakaway in his slipstream.
Ultimately it was too far for Lewis to sustain his effort to the line and Bellitti jumped past him in the final few hundred metres to take his first win in more than a year and a half. Lewis was swamped by the others with Henderson, Mayoz, Voss, Lang, Kriit and Claude all coming past him before the line.
Karpets came in 5’02” later, having been paced in by Horrach, and the peloton was led home by yesterday’s stage winner Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) at 7’26”. With the other race favourites unwilling to chase him, the Russian has taken 2’24” from them in the overall classification. He now moves up to 14th between Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) and Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana); another overall winner on the day was Mayoz, who rises to 12th.
Porte finished safely in the peloton and hangs on to his overall lead. With the mountains coming this weekend though, the young Australian will be truly tested.
Result stage 13
1. Manuel Belletti (Ita) Colnago-CSF Inox
2. Greg Henderson (NZl) Team Sky
3. Iban Mayoz (Spa) Footon-Servetto
4. Paul Voss (Ger) Team Milram
5. Sebastian Lang (Ger) OmegaPharma-Lotto
6. Kalle Kriit (Est) Cofidis
7. Mathieu Claude (Fra) Bbox Bouyges Telecom
8. Craig Lewis (USA) HTC-Columbia
9. Serguei Klimov (Rus) Katusha
10. Cameron Meyer (Aus) Garmin-Transitions @ 5s
Standings after stage 5
1. Richie Porte (Aus) Team Saxo Bank
2. David Arroyo (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne @ 1’42”
3. Robert Kiserlovski (Cro) Liquigas-Doimo @ 1’56”
4. Xavier Tondo (Spa) Cervélo TestTeam @ 3’54”
5. Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo @ 4”41”