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Michele Scarponi wins stage in a long breakaway, Di Luca retains the maglia rosa.
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Michele Scarponi (Diquigiovanni) soloed home an impressive victory Thursday to leave the chasing peloton in his rear-view mirror in the 2009 Giro d’Italia’s first successful breakaway.
Despite a frenetic chase by Quick Step and Katusha, the sprightly Italian held out after 198km in a five-man move in the 248km sixth stage over two rated climbs to the posh Austrian ski town of Mayrhofen. He won by 32 seconds clear of an impressive Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-Highroad).
Race leader Danilo Di Luca (LPR) finished in the main pack in ninth at 36 seconds back to successfully defend the pink jersey. There were no major shakeups in the top 10 on GC despite the Cat. 1 Hochkrimml climb with 45km to go, with Thomas Lovkvist (Columbia-Highroad) remaining second at five seconds back.
2009 Giro d'Italia
- Stage 6: Bressanone/Brixen to Mayrhofen im Zillertal
- 248km (154 miles)
- Stage winner: Michele Scarponi (Serramenti PVC) in 5:49:56
- Stage winner's average speed: 42.5 kph (26.4 mph)
- GC leader: Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes)
- Points jersey: Di Luca
- Climber's jersey: Di Luca
- Team GC leader: Astana
- Most aggressive for the day: Scarponi
- Best young rider: Thomas Lovkvist (Columbia-Highroad)
- Previous stage winners/GC leaders
- Stage 1: Team Columbia-Highroad/Cavendish
- Stage 2: Petacchi/Mark Cavendish
- Stage 3: Petacchi/Petacchi
- Stage 4: Di Luca/Lovkvist
- Stage 5: Denis Menchov/Di Luca
- Up next: Stage 7
- Friday's stage, from Innsbruck, Austria, to Chiavenna, Italy, is another long undulating course, this time 244km (152 miles) long. The route climbs steadily most of the day to the summit of the Passo Maloja, then descends to Chiavenna.
Levi Leipheimer (Astana) also finished safely in the front bunch of 64 riders to maintain his fourth place overall at 43 seconds in arrears, while teammate Lance Armstrong became unglued in the high-speed chase in the closing kilometers and crossed the line 73rd at 1:15 back.
A winner at Tirreno-Adriatico in March, the victory marked Scarponi’s first stage win in the Giro and another strong performance following a ban for being implicated in the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal.
“I lost some time yesterday, so I knew my GC hopes were over and today I thought about attacking to make amends,” he said. “We had a nice margin, but I didn’t know if it would be enough. (Vasily) Kiryienka collaborated and it wouldn’t have been possible without him, but in the end I was able to finish alone. It’s a tremendous feeling to win.”
The 29-year-old served an 18-month racing ban after admitting his role in the Puerto scandal, returning to action in late 2008.
Like Ivan Basso, he initially denied he worked with alleged Puerto ringleader Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes and raced part of the 2007 season, winning Settimana Ciclista with Acqua e Sapone, before succumbing to pressure from Italian authorities.
Following his ban, Diquigiovanni signed him last fall.
“I can only say what is in the past, is in the past,” said Scarponi, when queried by journalists after the stage. “That period away from racing is bad for any rider. I don’t want to think about it anymore, because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to carry on.”
Giro’s first successful breakaway win
Thursday’s transition stage into Austria had breakaway written all over it.
The mood was relaxed in Bressasone before the start of the stage as the main protagonists mulled over the fallout from Wednesday’s summit finish at Alpe di Suisi.
Especially satisfied was the Columbia-Highroad crew, when Lovkvist finished with the front group and narrowly saw his maglia rosa slip away while Michael Rogers nearly regained contact to remain third.
“We’re in a good position right now on the team. We’ve been working a lot, with Mark (Cavendish) in pink and then Thomas. You always want to keep the jersey as long as possible and Tommy really rode well,” Rogers said. “I’m feeling really good. I didn’t want to go too deep on the climb and I got back on the favorites just when they started sprinting for the stage. Now we’ll see how the race unfolds.”
Attacks came fast and hard off the gun. Scarponi tried to sneak away with Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) at 5km, but the pack wasn’t about the let the 2000 Giro champion attack so early, even if he’s more than six minutes back.
Barloworld was also on the attack, trying to put one of its riders into a string of attempts that were all reeled in.
Scarponi was persistent and finally four others extracted themselves from the pack. Along with Kiryienka, Kasper Klostergaard (Saxo Bank), Guilliaume Bonnafond (Ag2r) and Oscar Gatto (ISD) drove away at 50km to build a maximum gap of 9:38.
Kiryienka and Scarponi dropped their fellow escapees midway up the day’s main obstacle at the Cat. 1 Hochkrimml at 203km, a rugged pass through deep forests in the shadow of the snowy Austrian peaks.
There was no time for sightseeing and things got dicey when Garzelli bolted out of the main pack to give chase, but he could never get within more than one minute and was gobbled up by the main bunch with 30km to go.
With speeds topping 80kph on the drop off the Hochkrimml, Kiryienka and Scarponi held the main bunch at bay. Kiryienka had some bad luck, puncturing and then suffering cramps after he dug deep to catch Scarponi, only to give up the chase within the final 10km.
Quick Step and Katusha were leading the chase, consistently whittling down the gap to about one minute with 5km to go.
The high speed and dangerous circuit caused a fracture in the lead group, with Armstrong among a group of 30 riders crossing the line 40 seconds behind the GC favorites.
“That was the craziest last 30km I’ve ever seen,” Armstrong wrote on Twitter. “Long, fast descent at 80kph, plus then a tight circuit. At one point today we reached 110kph. That’s almost 70mph. Not sure that’s necessary really. Tomorrow is same kind of finish. It’s bike racing, not Moto GP.”
Boasson Hagen impresses
Scarponi hit the final 3km of a technical, multi-turn circuit loaded with traffic obstacles with enough margin to assure victory.
Even more impressive was Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-Highroad), the young Norwegian who put down an impressive sprint, passing five riders in the final 250 meters to finish second.
The winner of Ghent-Wevelgem bolted past some elite company, leaving the likes of Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto), Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) and Allan Davis (Quick Step) choking on his fumes.
“He’s a very truly a strong young rider. He can do some incredible things. It doesn’t surprise me when I saw what he did today. He has a great future, no doubt about it,” said Alessandro Petacchi, who rode in strong support of teammate Di Luca throughout the stage. “I saw that it was very dangerous in the finale, it was more important to keep the maglia rosa out of trouble than to try to take a risk in the sprints.”
Tomorrow’s stage:
The Giro d’Italia continues Friday with the 244km seventh stage from Innsbruk to Chiavenna, passing through Austria and Switzerland before returning to Italy for the duration of the centennial edition of the Giro.
Other than its long distance, the rolling stage features no major obstacles. The route slowly climbs up a long, wide-open valley where winds could be a factor. The course tops out at the Cat. 3 Passo Maloja at 207km. From there, it’s all downhill to the line at 244km.
The finale is mostly flat with a potentially dangerous corner with 1800 meters to go on a hard right-left. A traffic circle with 500 meters to go will provide one final hurdle before a straight shot to the line.
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