Ventoso Wins Giro d'Italia Stage Six Sprint

Movistar’s Francisco Ventoso won the tricky uphill sprint at the end of Stage Six of the Giro d'Italia.
Ventoso Wins Giro d'Italia Stage Six Sprint
5/12/2011
Updated:
8/26/2011

Movistar’s Francisco Ventoso won the tricky uphill sprint at the end of Stage Six of the Giro d’Italia, beating Lampre’s Alessandro Petacchi, who stopped pedaling and give up in the final seconds. This was the 29-year-old Spaniard’s first Grand Tour stage win.

“It was very, very long and very, very hard …. I am happy that I beat Petacchi, who is now gone very well,” Ventoso told Bikeworldnews.com. “As we could see the outliers in the last kilometers, we knew that there would be a chance to win.

 “I had this stage marked with an ‘X’ because I knew the uphill would favor me, but I thought Petacchi was going to get it,” Ventoso continued. “I followed his wheel up the climb. He cracked with 20 meters to go and I was able to win.”

A longish stage (216 km) with a Cat 4 climb early in, what made Stage Six challenging was the final ten kilometers, a steep uphill followed by smaller hills, with the last two km getting ever steeper. The terrain offered an invitation for strong riders to attack, and threatened to exhaust sprinters who mistimed and launched early.

The action in Stage Six started ten km in when Quick Step’s Kristof Vanderwalle and Omega Pharma-Lotto’s Jussi Veikkanen attacked, joined after five km by Yaroslav Popovych (RadioShack), (Colnago) and Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil).

This break stayed away until the nine kilometers from the end, shedding Sacha Modolo and then Jussi Veikkanen, while the gap, which reached almost six minutes, shrank to under a minute. Seeing that Popovych and Veuchelen were spent, Vanderwalle took off on his own, perhaps hoping to emulate the ride of Pieter Weening the day before.

Colnago’s Stefano Pirazzi attacked twice, but couldn’t catch Vanderwalle. David Millar took a shot, but the peloton wasn’t about to let him get away.

The final five km were filled with unsuccessful attacks: Mathias Frank, Emanuele Sella, then a whole host of solo riders tried to get away from the peloton.

Out front, Vanderwalle rode well, but the final climbs took too much out of him; the peloton caught him with 1800 meters to go.

Coming into the final 1000 meters, no team could set up a proper leadout. The high pace and hilly terrain had spread out the top sprinters and their teams. Survivors Allesandro Pettachi, Francisco Ventoso, Vacansoliel’s Borut Bozic, and Katusha’s Danilo Di Luca battled for position.

500 meters out, Di Luca made his bid, but ran dry before the line. The rest waited, trying to gauge their legs against the incline.

Ventoso launched, with Petacchi right on his wheel. Perhaps fifty meters out, Petacchi made his move, passing Ventoso on the right—he seemed set to take the win. But 30 meters from the line, Petacchi ran out of gas, letting the Movistar rider take the stage win.

After the race, Petacchi told reporters he simply had had no more left.

”Although I did not win, I’m very satisfied because I performed a very good sprint,” Petacchi said. “On arrival and against such a tough wind that was very strong, I had to give my best in order to try to compete for the victory. I was told that I overtook Francisco, but my energy was so low that I could not even see it.”

The pink jersey remains in the possession of Rabobank’s Pieter Weening.

Stage Seven: Into the Mountains


Stage Seven marks the first real mountain stage and the first mountaintop finish. This will be the first stage where some of the real GC contenders could start to open gaps.

Perhaps not, though. The stage is very short, only 100 km, with one Cat 2 climb in the middle and one at the end. The stage might not be demanding enough to weaken the lesser riders, so the big contenders like Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali might save some energy for the tougher stages.

Sunday’s stage up Mount Etna, for instance, comes right before a rest day and, at 169 km with two Cat One climbs and a mountaintop finish, should be a much better opportunity to gain time.

Mount Etna erupted Wednesday; organizers are hoping it stays quiet until after the stage.

Stage 6 Results

1

Franceso Ventoso (Movistar Team)

5:15:39

2

Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD)

5:15:39

3

Roberto Ferrari (Androni)

5:15:39

4

Danilo di Luca (Katusha)

5:15:39

5

Davide Appollonio (Sky)

5:15:39

6

Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD)

5:15:39

7

Christophe Le Mevel (Garmin-Cervélo)

5:15:39

8

Gerald Ciolek (Quick Step)

5:15:39

9

Paolo Tiralongo (Astana)

5:15:39

10

Ruggero Marzoli (Farnese Vini)

5:15:39

 

General Classification after Stage 6

1

Pieter Weening (Rabobank)

20:15:12

2

Kanstantin Siutsou (HTC-Highroad)

+ 0:02

3

Marco Pinotti (HTC-Highroad)

 

4

Christophe Le Mevel (Garmin-Cervélo)

+ 0:05

5

Pablo Lastras (Movistar Team)

+ 0:22

6

Vicenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale)

+ 0:24

7

Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD)

+ 0:26

8

Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank)

+ 0:28

9

Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard)

+ 0:30

10

José Serpa (Androni Giocattoli)

+ 0:33