After the magnificent efforts of yesterday, the peloton must have been delighted to wake up to face the Giro’s shortest stage today. In the end the sprint teams worked hard to keep the breaks under control, especially on the climbs and descents at the end. As they tore through the Swiss border control with 7km to go and into the mazy streets of Lugano, Lampre-Merida positioned Sacha Modolo perfectly to take his second win and his team’s fourth. The GC remains unchanged.
This stage was as close as this Vuelta gets to a routine sprint stage, but first crosswinds and then a final kilometre attack caused splits which shuffled the GC and produced a surprise stage winner in Bauke Mollema as the sprinters were left grasping at thin air once again. Continue reading
Saxo Bank’s Michael Morkov sprung a surprise to take the biggest win of his career, though his achievement was overshadowed by the superhuman efforts of Tony ‘Panzerwagen’ Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step). After spending the entire stage out front alone, he was caught with barely 50 metres remaining.