Pieter Weening of Rabobank team wins fifth stage of Tour of Giro d’Italia – Cycling news
Dutchman Pieter Weening of the Rabobank team won the stage five to take the pink race leader jersey at the Tour of Giro d’Italia.
The race started in Piombino and ended at Orvieto. Pieter Weening took a total of 4 hours, 54 minutes and 49 seconds to cover the distance of 191 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Pieter was very happy with his progress at the event and he wanted to defend the pink jersey for as long as possible in his career.
Pieter said, “Before [the Tour de] Romandie I was already strong - behind my win in the Tour de France this is the second biggest victory in my career.”
After the tragic death of Wouter Weylandt of the Leopard Trek team, the grief was fresh in the minds of the other cyclists during the fifth stage. The race started without the Leopard Trek team and Weylandt’s close friend Tyler Farrar of the Garmin-Cervelo
team.
In the beginning of the race, British cyclists David Millar led the group of the other riders but would lose the Maglia Rosa and overall dominance to Pieter Weening by end of the day.
Fabio Andres of the Geox-TMC team was the runner-up with a difference of 8 seconds. Jose Rodolfo of the Androni Giocattoli team finished third ahead of Christophe Le Mevel.
David Millar said, “It was a very hard day. My crash was a stupid crash. I always suffer in this part of Italy with the allergies and with everything. I've never been lucky at the Giro d’Italia.”
After 12 kilometres of the race, Martin Kohler of the BMC Racing team was the first who attacked the peloton and opened a sizeable gap. With 80 kilometres to go, Martin Kohler gained an advantage of 9 minutes.
30 kilometres later, the Swiss managed to hold onto his lead and again gained seven minutes over the peloton behind him as David Millar suffered a crash.
However, in the last 10 kilometres, Weening and Frenchman John Gadret had pulled away from the peloton. Weening left Fabio Duarte and Jose Serpa behind and crossed the finish line without any difficulty.
Pieter Weening also took a lead in the overall classification with a timing of 14 hours, 59 minutes and 33 seconds. Marco Pinotti was in second place 2 seconds behind Weening. Kanstantsin Sivtsov was in third while Christophe Le Mevel finished fourth.
The next stage will start in Orvieto and end in Fiuggi. All the riders will cover the distance of 216 kilometres during the stage.
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