Australian sprinter Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto) has added yet another Giro d'Italia stage win to his total, making it three for this year's race and 11 overall. After a flat 227 km run between Busseto and Forli, McEwen powered off AG2R's Tomas Vaitkus's wheel in the final 150m to win the stage. Vaitkus finished third, while Olaf Pollack (T-Mobile) was second, taking the maglia rosa off his teammate Serguei Gonchar's shoulders thanks to the 12 second time bonus.
The stage was a fairly uneventful one otherwise. After 6 km, Andoni Aranaga (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Sergiy Matveyev (Ceramica Panaria-Navigare) and Christophe Edalaine (Credit Agricole) attacked, and immediately established themselves as the breakaway of the day. Matveyev was the best placed on GC at 3'43 behind Gonchar, and the break gained as much as 6'16 after 83 km. But from then on, the work of T-Mobile and Davitamon-Lotto made sure they were safely back in the bunch with 18 km to go.
The usual battle for position followed, with many teams trying to take control on the fast run into the finish. In the final two kilometres, there was a crash that brought down Kessler and Korff (T-Mobile) and Flickinger (Bouygues), among others, but the sprinters in front weren't disturbed. Alberto Loddo (Selle Italia) went from a long way out, before Tomas Vaitkus took over. But the Lithuanian was too far from home, and McEwen was easily able to pass him and take his third stage win.
