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Di Luca reinforces lead as Columbia bag another stage

Belarusian Kanstantsin Siutsou handed the Columbia team their third victory of the centenary Tour of Italy when he won the 209km eighth stage from Morbegno to Bergamo on Saturday.

Race leader Danilo Di Luca retained the race leader’s pink jersey, taking his advantage over Swede Thomas Lovkvist to 13 seconds after sprinting to third place.

Siutsou said he benefitted from local knowledge.

“I live just 25km from Bergamo, parts of the course pass by there. I know the roads by heart and I know when the best moment is to attack,” he said.

The efforts of Di Luca, the Giro champion in 2007, prevented a podium sweep for on-form Columbia, for whom Australian Michael Rogers finished fourth, and gave him eight bonus seconds to add to his five-second overnight lead on Lovkvist.

Siutsou broke clear with 15km to race and held off the fast finishing remnants of the peloton to win in 5 hours, 4 minutes and 34 seconds.

Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen took second behind his team-mate 21 seconds back just a day after winning his maiden stage on the race.

Columbia also won the race’s opening stage, a team time trial which put the pink jersey on the shoulders of their main sprinter, Manxman Mark Cavendish.

The day was made for a long breakaway and around the 40km mark a group of 10 riders managed to start putting some daylight between themselves and the field.

They opened up a maximum lead of 4 minutes 30 seconds but on the penultimate climb of the day they were swallowed up by the peloton.

The 6.3km long Colle del Gallo, just over 30km from home, saw an interesting move from some of the top GC contenders with Astana’s Levi Leipheimer, 2004 champion Damiano Cunego of Lampre, Franco Pellizotti of Liquigas, Rogers and Stefano Garzelli (Acqua & Sapone) amongst them.

They had opened up a 54 second gap on the bunch by the top of the climb, which had seen the peloton disintegrate to around 30 riders.

At that point Rogers, who began the day in third place at 36 seconds from Di Luca, was the virtual leader on the road but Di Luca’s LPR team led a determined chase on the descent ahead of the final short Bergamo Alta climb.

The chase was successful and reeled in the escapees but almost immediately Siutsou went clear.

He pulled out a gap of 40 seconds before clinging on all the way to the line on the final 3.5km descent.

Meanwhile, Spanish cyclist Pedro Horrillo was placed in an induced coma on Saturday and described as being in a serious condition after crashing badly during the eighth stage.

The 34-year-old crashed on the descent of the Culmine di San Pietro mountain about 70km into the 209km race and was airlifted to a hospital in Bergamo.
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