The Giro d'Italia is one of three Grand Tours on the cycling calendar. It is airing on Universal Sports over the next few weeks and during the race daily recaps can be found here on this blog.
Today's Stage: A long and fairly flat stage built specifically with sprinters in mind.
Who won today's stage? Alessandro Petacchi of the Italian based Lampre team won a bunch sprint over HTC-Columbia's Mark Cavendish and a host of other sprinters.
What matters in the GC race? None of the overall contenders had any mishaps today, so nothing changes as far as the contenders for the overall victory. As far as the present goes, Cavendish took the leader's pink jersey from his teammate Marco Pinotti with his second place on the stage giving him a big enough time bonus to lead the race.
Biggest surprise of the day: Nobody went with poor Sebastian Lang on his single, solitary attack early in the stage. Lang rode alone for over 200 km before being caught by the peloton.
Biggest disappointment of the day: Tyler Farrar of Garvin-Cervelo finished 7th on the stage. Farrar is a sprinter and there are very few days where he is a favorite in these Grand Tours. This was one of them and Farrar didn't really contest the stage win alongside rivals Cavendish and Petacchi.
Other items of note: Cavendish complained about Petacchi's blocking tactics, but there was nothing terrible about what Petacchi did. Blocking is fine in cycling as long as there is still a path through and while Cavendish was cut-off during the sprint, there was still space for him along the barrier. Cavendish said after the stage that he doesn't ride like that anymore because he gets disqualified when he does (and that very well may be true), but what Petacchi did seems to be within the rules.
What is coming tomorrow? An interesting stage that favors the sprinters again, but could be ripe for attacks and breakaways with a short and steep climb just 9 km fro the finish. Expect a disorganized sprint finish with Petacchi and Cavendish near the front once again.
Any GC changes tomorrow? Not likely. Cavendish has the leaders jersey and if the stage finishes in a sprint then that won't change. Only if the breakaway gets away from the sprinters or if a late attack succeeds will there be a change. None of the major contenders for the win will be involved one way or another.
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