It doesn't seem to happen often, but sometimes the cyclists in a breakaway beat the peloton. It helps if the lead group contains about 20 bike riders, as it did Tuesday in Stage 10 of the Giro d'Italia bike race.
After sitting in the breakaway all day, Franco Pellizotti of the Liquigas team attacked on the uphill finish in Peschici and sprinted over the finish. Although he moved up from 32nd place, displacing 4th place Paolo Savoldelli (Discovery), Team CSC's Ivan Basso still holds the overall lead.
A group of 18 cyclists took off from the main group about 32 miles into the 116-mile race between Termoli to Peschici on Tuesday. Pellizotti and a couple of others chased the group and caught on later.
The breakaway group pushed the attack over two mountain tops leading into a rocky peninsula on the Adriatic coast. By the time the Lampre team started pulling the peloton along to catch up and protect the 3rd place overall standing of Damiano Cunego, the leaders were some 3 minutes ahead.
Another cyclist in the breakaway, Axel Merckx of Phonak, attacked about 9 miles from the finish, but Pellizotti and a handful of other bikers kept him in sight and passed him just as he rounded the final turn leading to the uphill finish line.
The overall standings:
1. Basso (I) CSC,
2. Gutierrez Cataluna (Phonak) at 1:34 behind
3. Damiano Cunego (Lampre) at 1:48
4. Pellizotti (Liquigas-Bianchi) at 2:05
5. Savoldelli (Discovery) at 2:35
6. Serhiy Honchar (T-Mobile) at 2:43
7. Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas-Bianchi) at 2:48
8. Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval) at 3:20
9. Giampaolo Caruso (Liberty Seguros) at 3:23
10. Tom Danielson (Discovery) at 3:31
The racers are taking off Wednesday to prepare for Thursday's dead-flat 31-mile individual time trial that begins and ends in Pontedera, but takes cyclists through the windy streets of Pisa.
More results at CyclingNews and VeloNews. OLN sells a video stream of the Giro at its website.
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