Mark Cavendish wins tenth stage and Alberto Contador takes overall lead: 2011 Giro d’ltalia
HTC-Highroad team's Mark Cavendish showed tremendous performance in2011 Giro d’ltalia and took his first sprint in the tenth stage from Termoli to Teramo, on Tuesday, May 17. Alberto Contador earned the overall leader's pink jersey.
Cavendish took total of 4 hours and 49 seconds to cover the distance of 159 kilometres
Francisco Jose of the Movistar team was runner-up with the same timing as of Francisco. Alessandro Petacchi of the Lampre-ISD team also showed good performances in the last kilometres, but grabbed the third spot.
Recently, in February Cavendish won the final stage of 2011 Tour of Oman and also took overall lead in the second stage of 2011 Giro d’ltalia.
After winning the stage, Mark Cavendish said, "I decided it was better to be behind Petacchi because I know I can pass him when I wanted to. I followed him and then opened my sprint with 150 metres to go."
The 189 cyclists took a decent start in the race, but Omega Pharma-Lotto team’s Adam Blythe soon abandoned the race.
In the first kilometres, the two cyclists Pierre Cazaux (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Fumiyuki Beppu (RadioShack) got away. Yuriy Krivtsov of the AG2R team gave up the chase and maintained their speed to join the two riders.
All of them made strong break and gained advantage of six minutes over peloton. After 160 kilometres, Beppu was highest ranked of the trio and gained more than 40 minutes behind race leader Alberto Contador. So the two riders allowed him to go so far in the race.
Beppu made a gap of 6 minutes and 18 seconds, which was too much for Contador. Fumiyuki grabbed the only KOM of the day ahead of Pierre and Yuriy Krivtsov.
In the last 3 kilometres to go, David Millar of the Garmin-Cervelo team attacked the peloton and he went into full time trail mode. Just before the flame rouge, the HTC-Highroad team worked hard for Cavendish and they caught the Briton.
Danilo Hondo helped his team-mate Alessandro Petacchi, but surprisingly pulled out of the race early. Francisco also took lead, but Cavendish made his speed and crossed the finish line ahead of the other riders.
The winner of the ninth stage, Alberto Contador took lead in the overall classification with the timing of 37 hours, 4 minutes and 40 seconds. Kanstantsin Sivtsov was runner-up, 59 seconds behind Contador. Christophe Le Mevel was third with difference 1 minute and 19 seconds adrift.
The next stage will start in Tortoreto and end in Castelfidardo. All the riders will cover the distance of 142 kilometres during the eleventh stage.
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