Elia Viviani takes stage victory and celebrates overall lead in Giro Di Padania 2011
Liquigas-Cannondale team’s Elia Viviani won the mass sprint of the second stage of Giro di Padania 2011 on Wednesday, September 7 as he also took the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Loano and ended in Vigevano. In the beginning of the stage, the protesters from the groups blocked the race at Sovona including, Partito Democratico, trade union CGIL and Rifondazione Comunista. The race organisers controlled the situation
and diverted the peloton into an alternative route.
After few kilometres to go, Sonny Colbrelli of the Colnago-CSF team was stuck by a protester while the police cleared the route. However, the group of three cyclists made an early break and gained a lead of three minutes over the peloton.
In the last kilometres, the four cyclists including, Kamil Gradek (Poland), Dominik Brandle (Voralberg), Philipp Mamos and Anton Kaniuk were followed by Liquigas-Cannondale team. Viviani increased his pace and was able to control the situation in the final
kilometres, as he showed a good effort and easily beat Modolo.
The 22-year-old Italian cyclist took a total of 4 hours, 23 minutes and 43 seconds to cover the distance of 187 kilometres. Sacha Modolo of Colnago-Csf Inox was runner-up with the same timing as the Italian.
Danilo Napolitano of Acqua & Sapone finished third ahead of Daniel Oss and Luka Mezgec. Jacobe Keough (Unitedhealthcare Pro Cycling) tried his best to take the lead but failed and secured sixth place with a difference of 3 seconds.
Recently, he took the prologue stage of Tour of Slovenia and grabbed first place in GP Costa degli Etruschi and Tour de Mumbai. He also took runner-spot in UCI track World Championships-Scratch.
Viviani also took the overall lead with a timing of 8 hours, 43 minutes and 22 seconds while Modolo was runner-up. The Slovenia cyclist Luka Mezgec was in third place with a difference of 16 seconds ahead of Blaz Furdi.
The next stage will start in Malpensa Lonate Pozzolo and end in Salsomaggiore Terme as all the cyclists will cover the distance of 198 kilometres.
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