Team rally around Wiggins
Team Sky dug deep to maintain fourth place for Sir Bradley Wiggins on a soaking wet stage nine at the Giro d’Italia.
Last Updated: 13/05/13 7:39pm
Team Sky dug deep to maintain fourth place for Sir Bradley Wiggins on a soaking wet stage nine at the Giro d’Italia.
The Brit was paced back to the lead group after he slipped back on the treacherous descent of the first category Vallombrosa climb.
A tense chase saw Wiggins’ Team Sky team-mates bury themselves while the team’s GC rivals pushed the pace on the front of the peloton – the gap stretching out to a minute at one point.
Despite that Wiggins was able to regroup and limit his losses, finishing safely in a reduced front group to retain fourth place overall, one minute and 16 seconds behind race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana).
Sergio Henao and Rigoberto Urán were allowed to sit in the lead group on the descent and not only comfortably held station on time, but moved up a position each to sixth and ninth respectively in the GC fight.
The stage always looked likely to play into the hands of a breakaway and so it proved as Maxim Belkov (Katusha) took a memorable solo victory in Florence.
The Russian weathered a number of attacks from his fellow escapees on the climbs before unleashing his power over the Vallombrosa and the final third of the stage to win by 44 seconds from Carlos Betancur (AG2R-La Mondiale) – the Colombian mistakenly celebrating second place.
Demanding day
After the stage Danny Pate filled us in on an eventual day and explained how the team approached the chase after Wiggins became distanced.
“It wasn’t super pleasant out there!” the American joked. “It wasn’t especially cold but it was definitely one of those medium stages that are challenging.
“It was pretty fast from the start. A couple of different groups formed and then finally we got the breakaway. It was quite big and having one guy in there Garate who was only five minutes or so down, they never really let it go out very far. So the pace was pretty strong all day.
“The two big climbs in the middle were pretty hard too and then when it came time to bridge the gap we just stayed together. Any time you have to do a chase not panicking is one of the most key things. We just tried to bring our group back to the main group and we managed it right on the third category climb. We had Rigo and Sergio ahead and everyone else was behind helping Brad. Then after he got back on that was it, I was pretty much blown!”
Pate is understandably now looking forward to the rest day on Monday, adding: “It’s nice to have tomorrow off. It’s stage nine and it’s a good place to have the rest day. It’s nice that we didn’t have to start somewhere and get a rest day after stage three or something like that. So it will be nice to take the day tomorrow – and then we have a hard stage on Tuesday.”
Sports Director Marcus Ljungqvist was full of praise for the composed display under pressure. He said: "The stage worked out well in the end. The guys raced as a team, didn’t panic and that was the key today. We were able to chase down the gap and at the end of the day we’ve moved up the GC with Rigoberto and Sergio. We have to be happy with that after a hard stage like this."
Digging deep
It was no surprise to see an attacking start and, after an early move had been shut down, 12 riders finally made tracks off the front as Astana set about defending the maglia rosa on behalf of Nibali.
With Juan Manuel Garate (Blanco Cycling) the best-placed man in the GC at 5:42 the break stood a good chance of staying clear on the last test before the rest day.
Robinson Chalapud (Colombia) and Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani Valvole) attacked out of the group on the Passo della Consuma, the pair sparring for the mountains points as wet conditions returned to the race yet again. Yet on the long descent off the Vallombrosa it was Belkov who hit out, powering clear of his fellow escapees and Jarlinson Pantano (Colombia) who set about following.
Back in the pack Wiggins slipped back on another wet, technical descent and with a gap opening out to the lead pack Team Sky were forced to push hard in a bid to bridge the gap against contributions from Astana, BMC Racing and Garmin-Sharp.
With Wiggins and the team able to limit losses the big loser on the day was Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp), the defending champion dropping just over a minute to his rivals and slipping out of the top 10 after becoming distanced on the final climb.
