Battaglin wins stage 14 of the Giro d'Italia

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Enrico Battaglin gave Bardiani-CSF their second victory in succession when he clinched the Giro d'Italia's 14th stage in dramatic fashion on the first-category summit finish at Oropa. Having caught leaders Dario Cataldo (Sky) and Jarlinson Pantano (Colombia) within the final kilometre, Battaglin appeared to have paid for that effort when these two riders distanced him on the final cobbled ramps. But he surged again in the final 50 metres to grind his way a bike length clear of Cataldo at the line, with Pantano ultimately well beaten in third.

“Until the final kilometre I didn’t believe it could happen, because I had already given a lot as I’d been in the break all day, which had taken a great deal out of me. Then I saw that they were just ahead of me and I only thought about giving all I had left,” said Battaglin.

“In the sprint I lost a few metres right away, then I gritted my teeth and saw that both Cataldo and Pantano were struggling. I passed them in the final 20 metres. I only just managed it. It was a great victory, very emotional.”

Behind the battle for stage honours, there was an equally gripping contest between the big names battling for the pink jersey. Race leader Rigoberto Urán and his Omega Pharma-QuickStep team looked relatively comfortable until Ag2r’s Domenico Pozzovivo skipped away from the maglia rosa group 4km from the line. Movistar’s Nairo Quintana immediately accelerated up to join the Italian.

The Ag2r rider leader set the pace ahead of his Movistar rival most of the way to the line, as Quintana’s Colombian compatriot Urán focused on limiting his losses, with significant help from team-mate Wout Poels.

In the final 200 metres, Urán also lost ground on Fabio Aru (Astana), Wilco Kelderman (Belkin), Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing).

How it unfolded

The action kicked off right from the start as a 21-rider break forged clear, featuring both riders who had designs on the stage and those clearly planning to sit in and wait for their team leaders to bridge up to them later in the day.

Wellens quickly made clear that his intention was to collect as many mountains points as possible when he led the break over the first of the stage’s four climbs, the third-category La Serra.

Soon after, a crash in the peloton left a number of riders on the road. Sky’s Kanstantsin Siutsou and stage nine winner Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge) were the most seriously affected. Both riders subsequently abandoned the race. As Urán’s Omega Pharma team eased off in their pace-making to allow stricken riders to rejoin the peloton, the break’s advantage more than doubled to reach almost 11 minutes with 75km covered.

Wellens took maximum points again on the first-category Alpe Noveis, by which point the peloton was less than eight minutes in arrears thanks largely to the pace-making of Omega Pharma’s Alessandro Petacchi and Iljo Keisse. However, there was no concerted attempt to reel the break back in, and the escapees pushed their advantage out to nine minutes crossing the third climb of Belmonte, where Nicolas Roche led over the top, a few seconds ahead of Wellens and the remains of the break.

Further down the Belmonte pass, Europcar duo Bjorn Thurau and Pierre Rolland attacked, the German setting a fierce pace for his leader. Moments later, Garmin repeated this tactic, sending Ryder Hesjedal off in Nathan Haas’ slipstream. Haas’ efforts enabled Hesjedal to bridge up to Rolland and Thurau, along with Trek’s Riccardo Zoidl and Movistar’s Gorka Izagirre.

Soon after Roche had been reeled in by the break on the descent to the foot of the final climb, Quinziato and Timmer joined forces and were a minute clear as the road kicked up towards Oropa. Unfortunately for Quinziato, a mechanical on the early ramps left him stranded and Timmer out on his own.

The big Dutch rouleur’s prospects of surviving up the steep climb to the finish didn’t look promising, but he made a supreme effort to pull off what would have been a most unlikely first pro victory. He kept his lead until he was inside the final three kilometres, where Cataldo and Pantano joined him, then breezed away from him.

Yet, thanks to a staggering effort, Timmer battled back up the two leaders in the final kilometre, along with Lampre’s Polanc and the nippy Battaglin. Polanc’s long-range attack from 700 metres out finally saw off Timmer, but ultimately cost him his own chance as well. For a few seconds, it seemed to have finished off Battaglin as well. But the Bardiani rider, who won a stage in the first week of last year’s race, still had a little left to give and delivered it at exactly the right moment.

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