Alberto Contador wins ninth stage and takes overall lead in 2011 Giro d’ltalia: Cycling News
Saxo Bank team's Alberto Contador, showed marvellous performance in the ninth stage from Messina to Etna, on Sunday, May 15. He also earned the general classification leader's pink jersey.
The Spanish road bicycle racer, Contador, covered the distance of 169 kilometres in 4 hours, 54 minutes and 9 seconds.
Jose Rujano Guillen of the Androni Giocattoli team was runner-up with three seconds behind Alberto. Stefano Garzelli of the Acqua & Sapone team also showed good performances in the stage, but grabbed the third place with a difference of 50 seconds.
Previously, in 2008 Contador won the overall classification in Giro d’ltalia stage race and in 2011 he won the fourth stage of Vuelta a Castilla y Leon. He also took a lead in overall classification in Volta a Catalunya.
After winning the stage, the three-time Tour de France champion said, "I felt good today and my legs were good, so I had to try something, I only had one doubt because there was a lot of wind but I kept going. Scarponi came with me at the start, but he faded
and I just carried on."
The race started with the successive attempts of break, four group of riders including Peter Kennaugh (Sky), Danilo Di Luca (Katusha), Luis Pasamontes (Movistar) and Simone Stortoni (Colnago) got away.
Giovanni Visconti was joined by the group of eight cyclists, Yaroslav Popovych, Mickael Cherel, Jan Bakelants, Alessandro Vanotti, Pablo Lastras, Filippo Savini, former stage winner Mathias Frank and Joan Horrach Rippoll. They all made a strong break in
the race.
In the last 28 kilometres, all of them gained maximum advantage of five minutes over the peloton.
The three teams, Lampre, Liquigas and Astana, working together in the front and Vacansoleil-DCM rider Maxim Belkov was caught by the peloton.
With 25 kilometres remaining, the peloton chased the group of riders and reduced the gap by three minutes and fifteen seconds. With few kilometres remaining, Di Luca dropped from the other group and joined by the three cyclists Vanotti, Savini and Popovych.
Contador maintained his speed in the last 6.8 kilometres from the finish and took a lead over Scarponi. Contador took advantage of three minutes and crossed the finish line ahead of the other riders.
Contador also took a lead in overall classification with the timing of 33 hours, 3 minutes and 51 seconds. Kanstantsin Sivtsov was in the second spot, 59 seconds behind Alberto. Christophe Le Mevel finished third with 1 minute and 19 seconds adrift.
The next stage will start in Termoli and end in Teramo. All the riders will cover the distance of 159 kilometres during the tenth stage.
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