Giro d’Italia stage 18: Capecchi finally puts Liquigas in the winner’s circle

Stage 18: Morbegno to San Pellegrino Terme, 151km

Vincenzo Nibali‘s hopes of overall victory may have vanished, but his Liquigas-Cannondale team salvaged a measure of pride as Eros Capecchi proved the strongest in a three-up sprint to give the team their first win in this year’s Giro d’Italia. It was only the 24-year old’s third professional victory.

The profile of the stage from Morbegno to San Pellegrino Terme, the town famous for its bottled water, was essentially flat until the last 40km. However, the peloton was in no mood to allow a break go too early, completing the first hour at 53kph and clamping down on every escape attempt until close to the halfway point. Finally, a group of 19 riders formed and was allowed to extend a comfortable lead over the main bunch.

The break continued together until it hit the slopes of the day’s one major climb, the second category Passo di Ganda. This 9.2km. 7.3% climb has a fairly steady gradient for most of its length, with the final 2km being its toughest stretch, featuring a leg-sapping 15% section. Six men – Jérôme Pineau and Kevin Seeldraeyers (both Quick Step), Russell Downing (Sky), Gianluca Brambilla (Colnago-CSF Inox), Marco Pinotti (HTC-Highroad), and Capecchi – initially rode clear of their breakaway comrades on the lower slopes of the climb. However, the pace proved to be too much for Pineau, Brambilla and Downing, leaving Capecchi, Seeldraeyers and Pinotti to forge ahead.

The peloton skirts along the edge of Lake Como during stage 18 (image courtesy of Graham Watson)

The leading trio rode together over the summit with Brambilla clinging grimly on about 20 seconds behind. Meanwhile, the peloton was happy to follow four minutes back, with Giovanni Visconti launching a solo attempt to bridge the gap to the leaders in the hope of redeeming himself for his bungled sprint yesterday.

With Brambilla gradually falling back, he was subsequently joined by Astana‘s Paolo Tiralongo, but the pair were unable to make any inroads on the front three. Behind them, the peloton were now in cruise control as they allowed the gap to the leaders to slip out beyond seven minutes.

In the closing kilometres on the run in to San Pellegrino, the cat-and-mouse started in earnest. Having tried an exploratory dig three kilometres out, Pinotti subsequently found himself trapped at the front and unable to drop back behind the others. At one stage, the trio came to a virtual standstill before a resigned Pinotti set off again. Around the final corner with 250m left, he was left with no option but to open up the sprint, setting himself up as an easy target for Capecchi, who came around him and easily hit the line first.

An emotional and exhausted Capecchi said he was delighted with his win, having struggled to find form so far during this Giro:

I haven’t had a lucky Giro. I wasn’t going as well as I wanted. To win this stage brings me incredible joy.

All the major contenders – including the top three Alberto Contador, Michele Scarponi and Nibali – arrived safely in a group of over 60 riders 6:04 behind the winner. The top of the general classification remains unchanged. Of greater interest for Contador, though, was the news that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has agreed to postpone the UCI and WADA‘s appeal in his clenbuterol doping case until at least mid-July, which opens the door for him to compete in the Tour de France.

Stage 19 will be a more challenging day for the peloton as it concludes with a summit finish. However, a big attack from one of the top riders is unlikely as the final climb is not that challenging and many will want to save energy for the more difficult Sestriere climb on Saturday. The day’s 209km route from Bergamo to Macugnaga takes in the first category Mottarone (13.8km, 6.2% average gradient) about two-thirds of the way through the stage, an awkward and variable climb which touches gradients as high as 14% early and late in the climb, but also features a short descent midway, before the final 4km averages around 9.5%. The stage ends on the Macugnaga, a seemingly interminable (28.2km) but mild (3.9%) mountain, which is steepest at the beginning before a long and relatively straightforward ascent to the summit finish. It should be yet another opportunity for a breakaway rider to make a name for himself.

Stage 19 profile

Stage 18 result:

1. Eros Capecchi (Liquigas-Cannondale) 3:20:38

2. Marco Pinotti (HTC-Highroad) same time

3. Kevin Seeldraeyers (Quick Step) s/t

4. Gianluca Brambilla (Colnago-CSF Inox) +1:20

5. Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) s/t

General classification:

1. Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard) 71:45:09

2. Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) +4:58

3. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) +5:45

4. John Gadret (AG2R La Mondiale) +7:35

5. Kanstantsin Sivstov (HTC-Highroad)  +9:12

6. José Rujano (Androni Giocattoli) +9:18

7. Mikel Nieve (Euskaltel-Euskadi) +9:22

8. Denis Menchov (Geox-TMC) +9:38

9. Roman Kreuziger (Astana) +9:47

10. Joaquim Rodríquez (Katusha) +10:25

Points classification:

1. Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard) 158 pts

2. Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) 103

3. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) 95

4. José Rujano (Androni Giocattoli) 87

5. Stefano Garzelli (Acqua & Sapone) 77

Mountains classification:

1. Stefano Garzelli (Acqua & Sapone) 64 pts

2. Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard) 53

3. Mikel Nieve (Euskaltel-Euskadi) 39

4. José Rujano (Androni Giocattoli) 29

5. Gianluca Brambilla (Colnago-CSF Inox) 29

Links: Giro d’Italia official website, Steephill.tv

Giro d’Italia recaps

Stage 1: Pinotti swaps red, white and green for pink

Stage 2: Petacchi celebrates, Cavendish remonstrates in ham-fisted Parma finish

Stage 3: Weylandt’s death casts a long shadow

Stage 4: Peloton rides in tribute to Weylandt

Stage 5: Weening takes maglia rosa as Millar bites the dust

Stage 6: Ale-Jet runs out of gas as Ventoso wins uphill drag

Stage 7: De Clercq claims first professional win by a whisker

Stage 8: Gatto gets the cream as Contador shows his claws

Stage 9: Explosive Contador erupts on Etna

Stage 10: No tow required as Cavendish opens Giro account

Stage 11: Gadret times his finish to perfection

Stage 12: Cavendish doubles up and retires from the Giro

Stage 13: Contador’s gift leaves Rujano singing in the rain

Stage 14: All pain, few gain as Antón triumphs on the ascent to Hell

Stage 15: Nieve wins marathon stage, Contador sails serenely on

Stage 16: Contador victory confirms Giro rivals are racing for second

Stage 17: Ulissi wins, Visconti relegated when push comes to shove

Giro d’Italia stage 1: Pinotti swaps red, white and green for pink

Stage 1: Venaria Reale to Torino, 19.3km team time trial

A well-drilled HTC-Highroad team secured a dominant victory in the team time trial which kicked off the 94th Giro d’Italia. In front of hundreds of thousands of spectators on a sunny afternoon in Turin Marco Pinotti, wearing the red, white and green colours of the Italian national time trial champion, secured the pink maglia rosa of the race leader. With the notable exceptions of Joaquim Rodríguez and Igor Antón, most of the top general classification contenders finished in a narrow 15-20 second band at the upper end of the order.

Personally, I’m a fan of having a short team time trial to open up a Grand Tour. Compressed into a manageable couple of hours, it allows the viewer to familiarise themselves with the key riders and their teams’ colours, from the plain (the black-dominated strips of Sky and Leopard Trek) to the garish (the flourescent yellow of Farnese Vini or the instantly recognisable orange of Euskaltel-Euskadi).

The 19.3km route across Turin was both scenic and interesting, starting in Venaria Reale to the north-west of the city and ending on the cobbles of the Piazza Vittorio Veneto, by way of a route which was twisty and technical in the opening kilometres before opening out into a straight, wide middle section, with several tricky ninety-degree corners which are typical of city centre courses. The critical time in a team trial is that of the fifth rider to cross the finish line, meaning that a squad cannot afford to shed more than four of its nine riders en route.

HTC-Highroad celebrate victory in the team time trial, with Marco Pinotti wearing the leader's pink jersey (image courtesy of HTC-Highroad/TDWSport.com)

Omega Pharma-Lotto set the benchmark

First out of the start-house was Omega Pharma-Lotto, a team missing its three biggest stars: Philippe Gilbert, Jurgen van den Broeck and sprinter André Greipel. Their fifth man stopped the clock at 21:21, a quick time which became increasingly impressive as subsequent teams failed to get anywhere near beating it.

It came as little surprise that wild-card entrants such as Acqua & Sapone (the team of 2000 winner Stefano Garzelli) and Colnago-CSF Inox fell 40-plus seconds short of the benchmark time. Similarly, the poor performance of the Katusha and Euskaltel-Euskadi teams of Spanish climbing specialists Rodríguez and Antón, which would ultimately occupy 20th and 23rd (last) positions, was also entirely expected. But only when Rabobank, one of the strongest teams in this discipline, fell four seconds short did it become apparent quite how good Omega Pharma’s performance had been.

This was further underlined when Sky, fielding a relatively inexperienced squad but one hopeful of a good showing on this stage, could register only 21:36, fully 15 seconds down. And Geox-TMC, the team of past Grand Tour winners Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre, were surprisingly a further 16 seconds back.

HTC-Highroad prove the biggest of the big guns

Rabobank aside, most of the big teams were running further down the order. Saxo Bank Sungard, the team of Alberto Contador and Richie Porte, the young Australian who led the race for three days and finished seventh overall last year, attracted considerable attention, and although they were within a second of the lead at the intermediate checkpoint, they eventually slipped to eight seconds behind.

Pinotti claimed the maglia rosa after a superb team effort (image courtesy of highroadsports.com)

Two teams later came HTC-Highroad, boasting a line-up including the red, white and green jersey of Pinotti, sprinter Mark Cavendish and lead-out man extraordinaire Mark Renshaw. They set off at a blistering pace, recording the fastest split time by a massive 11 seconds, and registering an identical advantage over the second half of the course to stop the clock with a new best time of 21:00 dead.

Of the nine remaining squads, only three – Garmin-Cervélo, Liquigas-Cannondale (the team of Vincenzo Nibali) and RadioShack – had a realistic chance of challenging HTC-Highroad’s time. Garmin found themselves reduced to just five men too soon to mount a serious threat and would eventually finish fifth, 24 seconds down. Liquigas were two seconds quicker. But, slightly surprisingly, it was RadioShack who would become the only other team to beat Omega Pharma’s time, finishing in 21:09 to give HTC-Highroad victory by ten seconds. Although with hindsight it should perhaps not have been so unexpected that a team drilled by the meticulous Johan Bruyneel, the architect of Lance Armstrong‘s seven Tour de France wins, would perform to their maximum potential on a day requiring clockwork teamwork.

Crucially, Cavendish led HTC-Highroad out of the final corner to allow Pinotti to cross the line first, giving the Italian the honour of being the first wearer of the maglia rosa on home territory. It was a classy move by the team and by Cavendish, who has often gotten himself into trouble with his outspoken nature and is frequently criticised for racing for stage wins and nothing else, and yet always speaks highly of his teammates’ effort.

Victory also marked the second time in succession that HTC-Highroad have won an opening team time trial at the Giro, having also been fastest in 2009. (Last year’s race kicked off with an individual time trial.) On that occasion, Cavendish was afforded the privilege of claiming the maglia rosa. Today it was Pinotti’s turn.

Even though Pinotti finished ninth overall last year, no one on either the HTC-Highroad or Omega Pharma-Lotto teams really represents a serious threat for the race win. It means that most of the major contenders such as Nibali, Contador and Michele Scarponi are separated by less than 20 seconds going into tomorrow’s second stage. It was a good day for RadioShack’s Tiago Machado, who holds a slim but psychologically useful advantage of up to 20 seconds on the aforementioned rivals. But for Menchov and Sastre, and particularly Rodríguez and Antón – the latter of whom is already 51 seconds adrift of Nibali – it will have done their cause no good at all to be put on the back foot so early in the race. It reduces their margin for error and, as Andy Schleck discovered at the Tour de France last year, an apparently insignificant handful of seconds lost on the opening day can make the difference between victory and defeat. He conceded 42 seconds to Contador in the prologue, and subsequently missed out on overall victory by just 39.

Pinotti expressed how honoured he was to be the race’s first leader, but was quick to acknowledge the efforts and preparation of his team:

It was a great team win. We showed that we were well prepared. It was a demanding course and it was even hard to get into that first position for the last corner. It was special to arrive in Turin with the Italian national champions jersey.

And Cavendish added on his Twitter stream:

I’m so proud of the guys today. Like a group of musketeers.

Stage two takes the peloton 244km from Alba to Parma on a flat stage which should favour a bunch sprint. After his day of glory, Pinotti will be doing everything he can to claim a second HTC win in support of Cavendish.

Stage 1 result:

1. HTC-Highroad 20:59

2. RadioShack +0:10

3. Omega Pharma-Lotto +0:22

4. Liquigas-Cannondale +0:22

5. Garmin-Cervélo +0:24

6. Lampre-ISD + 0:24

7. Rabobank + 0:26

8. Saxo Bank Sungard +0:30

9. Sky +0:37

10. Vacansoleil-DCM +0:37

11. Movistar +0:38

12. Androni-Giocattoli +0:39

13. BMC +0:41

14. Leopard Trek +0:42

15. Quick Step +0:42

16. AG2R +0:49

17. Astana +0:50

18. Geox-TMC +0:53

19. Colnago-CSF Inox +1:02

20. Katusha +1:04

21. Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli +1:07

22. Acqua & Sapone +1:07

23. Euskaltel-Euskadi +1:13

Links: Giro d’Italia official website, Steephill.tv

Giro d’Italia preview

Teams & sponsors (part 1)

Teams & sponsors (part 2)

Five key stages

Key contenders for the maglia rosa

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• HTC-Highroad wins first stage of Giro (theglobeandmail.com)