The cyclists in the Giro d'Italia peloton rode the HTC-Highroad express for 114 miles from Castelfidardo to Ravenna on Thursday as the team delivered its VIP passenger to the finish line.
Sprinter Mark Cavendish sat on his teammates' wheels until the final 100 yards when he battled for victory against Davide Appollonio (Sky) and Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre).
The Stage 12 victory made Cavendish the first cyclist to win two stages at this year's Giro; it was the 7th Giro victory of his career.
Dead flat
The overall standings remained the same, the Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank) in the lead by 59 seconds.
In a Giro d'Italia marked by mountain stages, the 184k bike race along the Adriatic Coast was dead flat.
A four-man breakaway formed 7km (4.3 miles) into the the race — Michal Golas (Vacansoleil),
Davide Ricci (Farnese Vini), Miguel Minguez (Euskaltel) and Stef
Clement (Rabobank). They never got four minutes ahead, as HTC-Highroad managed the gap at front of the peloton the entire stage.
The four were caught on the outskirts of Ravenna, about 8 miles from the finish. The HTC-Highroad cyclists pushed at such a high pace that only a few cyclists could get to the front briefly.
Final sprint
With 4 miles to go, Cavendish rode behind three other HTC-Highroad teammates and was followed by rival, Petacchi. They remained like that until the Cavendish train started peeling off the front.
When Cavendish's last teammate, Mark Renshaw, moved aside, Appollonio and Petacchi attacked on either side of Cavendish, who won the race anyway.
Eerily, only about 30 cyclists came across in the final sprint, as a crash on a left turn in the final mile delayed everyone else.
The peloton moves into the high mountain stages on Friday, starting with a summit finish in the Austrian Alps.
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