Giro d'Italia (st. 15)

The Giro enjoys a desired relax day after another hard mountain stage where Movistar Team was in the lead with the moves by Bruseghin and tireless Amador. Visconti withdraws

The Giro d’Italia will profit from a first real rest day on Monday -the first one was used to make the long transfer from the depart in Denmark- following a really hard third weekend of racing, where tough mountains for two days in a row were joined by bad weather, with rain and cold. All of that caused the withdrawal by Giovanni Visconti, suffering an asthmatic crisis that forced him to abandon before halfway into the stage -169km were on the route from Busto Arsizio to Lecco- with serious problems to breathe. At that point of the race, Italian Matteo Rabottini (FAR) was already up-front, ending up leading a tremendous, 150-kilometer effort to fruition.

At the first of four chained climbs (the last one, Pian dei Resinelli, being the second consecutive summit finish in the race), Movistar Team put their riders into the game with Marzio Bruseghin and unstoppable Andrey Amador into a 12-man attempt that gained a massive, 4-minute gap over the bunch and was eventually reduced to five competitors -the Costa Rican rider within those- into a hard fight lasting for nearly 80k. Amador was finally caught by the favourites’ group with 5k from the finish, leaving his spot to top to Beñat Intxausti, who keeps the 7th seat in the overall with six days from the finish -the maglia rosa is again on the hands of Joaquim Rodríguez (KAT)-. More behind was Sergio Pardilla, who did not surrender and, alongside Amador, make his time count to keep Movistar Team in the lead of the squads’ overall classification.