Italian Alessandro Petacchi put his legal problems to one side to roar to a landmark 20th stage victory in the Vuelta a Espana on Friday.
The veteran Lampre rider accelerated away in a bunch sprint in Orihuela that decided the 187.1km seventh stage.
Britain’s Mark Cavendish finished second and Argentina’s Juan Jose Haedo was third. Belgian Philippe Gilbert retained the overall lead.
Awaiting a verdict from Italy’s anti-doping authority CONI over alleged links to a drugs probe, the 36-year-old Petacchi said it was a huge relief to win.
“I’ve spent more time in the last 25 days since the Tour de France with my lawyers than I have done with my family,” he told reporters. “It’s been a really horrible period of my life and it meant I came to this race on the back foot, but at least I could turn it round today with a victory, one I really needed to get.”
Petacchi was proud to record his 20th stage triumph in the Vuelta.
“I’ve taken 26 in the Tour of Italy, six in the Tour de France and 20 here, that’s something that could inspire younger riders in the future,” he said.
However, Petacchi added that Friday’s win did not give him any extra confidence for the world championships in Melbourne on Oct. 3.
“That is 260km long, not 180, and the course is much tougher than today’s,” he said. “I’ve still got to improve a lot before I can be sure I’m going to do something there.”
The Tour de France points classification winner said Friday’s victory was built on good work by his lead-out man, Danilo Hondo of Germany.
“Hondo brought me through a complicated chicane in exactly the right position and I was able to race away with 150m to go,” Petacchi said.
The riders were set for a testing challenge in the next mountainous stage to Xorret de Cati, which ends with a brutally steep 4km ascent and a fast drop to the finish.
Also on the Vuelta, a masseur with Team Sky died on Friday, five days after he was taken to hospital suffering from an infection that has also hit three riders, doctors announced.
Txema Gonzalez, 38, died in hospital in the southern Spanish city of Seville.
He had been treated since Sunday for a viral infection that has forced the withdrawal of three Team Sky riders — Spain’s Juan Antonio Flecha on Friday and South Africa’s John Lee Augustyn and Britain’s Ben Swift on Monday.
Team Sky early on Friday had “ruled out” food poisoning when it announced that Flecha had been taken to hospital during the night.
Flecha “was admitted during the night to a hospital and remained under observation until 3am due to the virus that Team Sky is suffering and which has already forced the withdrawal of John Lee Augustyn and Ben Swift,” a spokesman for the team said in a statement.
The Vuelta’s two official medics, Juan Maria Irigoyen and Txomin Grande, later told reporters that Team Sky’s doctor had reported that tests on Gonzalez revealed the presence of a pathogenic bacteria, or one which causes infectious diseases, present in meat, fish and milk products.
The announcement of the death of Gonzalez, just minutes before the conclusion of seventh stage of the Vuelta, sparked emotional reactions from some participants.
“It’s a hard blow, we knew that he was in a critical condition, but we didn’t imagine it would come to this,” Vuelta a Espana director general Javier Guillen told Spanish public television.
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