A weekend into the big mountains
18 May 2012

Giro d'Italia (st. 13)

After a short transition stage won by Mark Cavendish (SKY), two summit finishes await in the Giro as Movistar Team comes into the first decisive duo in the lead of the squads ranking

It wasn’t a day of much history in the 13th stage of the 2012 Giro d’Italia, a short, 121-kilometer ride from Savona to Cervere with another bunch sprint where Fran Ventoso chose to stay out of any risks and leave the fastmen go ahead, as Mark Cavendish (SKY) took his third success in this year’s Corsa Rosa. Before that, the Spanish rider from Movistar Team, helped again in the finale by José Herrada, had taken a great position into the bunch for the last 15k after a stage with no big moves: Francesco Failli (FAR) and Martijn Keizer (VCD) went apart from the start but were always under control from the bunch, as the Blue riders went with no complications through the day to keep their provisional lead in the teams’ classification.

Tomorrow, an expected bad weather will gather the first of two Alpine stages in the weekend before the second rest day on Monday. Stage fourteen, with 206k from Cherasco to Cervinia, a Cat. 1 climb of 27 kilometers and 5.5% average gradient, will be preceeded by the Col de Joux -more than 20km of climbing- with 45 kilometers from the end.