Ventoso sprints to stage win in Fiuggi

Slumped on the ground after the finish, Spanish sprinter Francisco Ventoso earned the biggest victory of his career when he took out the sixth stage of this year's Giro d'Italia in Fiuggi, beating points classification leader Alessandro Petacchi at the end of another long day in the saddle.

"It was very, very long and very, very hard...I'm happy to beat Petacchi, who rode well today," said Ventoso immediately after the stage. "In the final 1,500 metres, when we could see the break, we knew there was an opportunity [for the win].

"I took a win in Australia [at the Tour Down Under - ed] when we had a new sponsor and now I took another win for the team."

Ventoso benefited from stellar work by his Movistar teammates, who helped him take advantage of that opportunity and make the selection on the selective final climb to the finish.

The sprint for the line was made more difficult by the ascending closing kilometres, which Petacchi recognized as making the difference between him winning and taking bridesmaid honours for the day.

A surprise packet in the finale was Danilo Di Luca, the Katusha rider kicking hard in the last 500 metres, but it wasn't to be his day - that honour went to Ventoso, who recently turned 29 and remains in great form after taking out two stages at the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon last month.

On a rolling, 'medium mountain' stage, Pieter Weening's Rabobank teammates did enough to keep their man in the maglia rosa for another day whilst Petacchi's performance in the finale ensured he holds onto the points classification lead.

Another day, another classic...

The 216km journey was another day inspired by the Classics - in terms of distance, anyway - and after yesterday's heroics on the strade bianche there was a desire from the peloton to avoid any undue risks and make it through the stage with safety as the priority.

The course boasted only one categorized climb, to Soriano Nel Cimino, but the sting in the tail came in the last 11km, which rose to 616m; it was decisive in the finish and eliminated several sprinters from contention such as Mark Cavendish, who was dropped within the final 50km.

Seeing the opportunity to spend a solid day off the front, Jussi Veikkanen (Omega Pharma-Lotto) attacked after nine kilometres and was joined by Kristof Vandewalle (Quick Step), Yaroslav Popovych (RadioShack), Sacha Modolo (Colnago-CSF Inox) and Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil-DCM).

With a maximum advantage of six minutes on such a long day, it appeared a formality that the escapees would find themselves enveloped by the bunch in the final 30km but in reality the peloton left it a lot later than that to bring back the day's early break.

When Modolo was dropped on a climb with 43km remaining the break was holding onto a gap of 2:50 and seemingly done for, although as the quartet passed 25km to go until Fiuggi and the gap remained at 2:30 - with almost two kilometers separating the two groups on the road - maybe there was some hope.

Modolo was reabsorbed by the decimated bunch as it clocked up 194.5km in the saddle and Farnese Vini stepped on the gas, resulting in a rapidly-decreasing advantage for the break, which hovered just over 90 seconds with 20km to race.

Veikkanen was the next to go, finding the going too tough, leaving a leading trio to fight it out. That was Stefano Pirazzi's cue to try his hand at being the hero but his ill-fated attack made no sense and he dangled out within sight of the peloton for the better part of 10km.

Time for a selection

As the break hit the climb in the final 10km the gap had dropped to 48 seconds, with 500 meters separating the leaders from a hard-charging chase group. It was time to say good night to Veuchelen two kilometers later, the Belgian suffering on the finishing slopes, while Popovych found himself wrapped in the wings of the chase.

And the climb to Fiuggi was proving surprisingly selective amongst the pursuers as hitherto maglia rosa David Millar kicked hard - his attack was short-lived however, while Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) showed why he's a name on everybody's lips with an offensive sortie, followed by HTC-Highroad's Frantisek Rabon.

One-out attacks were all well and good but Vandewalle remained the man to beat - this spurred on Millar to try to bridge across to the Belgian again but as the front of the race passed 1,500 meters to go in the 216km day it was game over for the Quick Stepper.

Despite Di Luca's heroics in the final 500 metres the finale essentially came down to a showdown between Petacchi and Ventoso, after Lampre-ISD teammate Danilo Hondo had led-out the former, only for the Italian veteran to fade in the last 20 meters and the latter to hold for a memorable and well-deserved win.

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