How tough was Saturday's Stage 7 of the Giro d'Italia?
For one thing, it was 138 miles long. Also, it rained, hard at times; hard enough that a short section of the course was closed due to a landslide.
Compounding that, the peloton cycled over about a dozen miles of Tuscany's strada bianche, dirt roads. The rain, of course, turned the dirt to mud and the racers were covered in it.
Plowing through all this to victory, however, was Australia's Cadel Evans (above), who beat an elite group that included Damiano Cunego (Lampre), Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and Marco Pinotti (HTC-Columbia).
Overall leader
Vinokourov assumed the overall lead of the race after Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) crashed on a downhill turn and never returned to the bunch in front. Lampre riders Nibali, Ivan Basso and Valerio Agnoli were in the top 3 spots going into Stage 7 based on Lampre's team time trial win earlier in the Giro.
Reigning world champion Evans, whose BMC Cycling team performed poorly in that same team time trial, clawed his way up into 2nd place overall after Saturday's stage win. He's 1:12 behind Vinokourov. Both Evans and Vinokourov have already briefly worn the maglia rosa in this year's Giro.
Sunday's Stage 8 is expected to be one of the Giro's epic bike races this year. The 117-mile route starts in Cianciano and ends on a mountain top climb up Monte Terminillo.
More results at CyclingNews and VeloNews. The highlights will be rebroadcast at Universal Sports at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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