Evans mashes to stage win in Macerata

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Cadel Evans (BMC) took advantage of the internecine rivalry between Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) on the final climb to Macerata to strengthen his command of Tirreno-Adriatico. The Australian watched as the Italian pair shut one another down in the finale and then unleashed a devastating acceleration of his own to take a resounding stage victory and consolidate his overall lead.

Italian champion Giovanni Visconti (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) came home in second place ahead of Michele Scarponi, but nobody in the elite leading group could match Evans’ finishing kick on the final heave to the line. Once he hit the front 300 metres from home, the victory was never in doubt, and he now holds a 9-second lead over Scarponi and a 12-second buffer over Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale) ahead of the final stage time trial.

“It was one thing to take the jersey yesterday but to win a stage in the jersey today is really great,” Evans said afterward. “My first plan today was not to lose any seconds but of course if there’s an opportunity to gain seconds that’s always an advantage ahead of tomorrow.”

Although he moved up to second overall thanks to picking up time bonuses, Scarponi was arguably the man who lost the most on the stage, as his shadow boxing with Giro d’Italia rival Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) in the closing metres was ultimately to prove his undoing.

Scarponi set his Lampre-ISD team to work ahead of the finale in the knowledge that the sharp uphill finish would probably be his last opportunity to take the jersey from Evans, on paper a stronger time triallist. Damiano Cunego began the pressing on the final incline, with 1.5km to go, before Scarponi kick-started the hostilities in earnest.

On his first attack, Scarponi had Evans, Basso, Danilo Di Luca (Katusha) and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) lined up on his wheel, and when he relented, Angel Madrazo (Movistar) took advantage of the lull to sally off the front himself before being brought to heel.

As the favourites eyed one another, Scarponi made another tentative move, but once more, the ever-vigilant Evans was assured in his response and betrayed no visible signs of weakness. However, after Tiago Machado (RadioShack) screamed clear under the red kite, Scarponi opted to go again, and when even Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) couldn’t hold his wheel, it looked as though the Italian had the gap he needed.

Scarponi was impressive in blasting past Machado as the road pitched upwards but when Vincenzo Nibali made it across 500 metres from home, his aggression was tempered. He slowed and called on Nibali to come to the front, but the Sicilian refused to come through and the pair spread across the road, allowing the chasers to catch back up.

Immediately, Giovanni Visconti took a flyer down the right hand side of the road, but impressive as the Italian’s effort was, it served only as the perfect lead-out for the attentive Evans. The overall leader bided his time and then burst past Visconti and Nibali ahead of a right hand curve 300 metres from home.

On the rise to the line, Evans had more than enough in his legs to take an emphatic victory and place himself in a commanding position ahead of Tuesday’s concluding time trial, where Basso (5th on the stage) and Robert Gesink (4th overall at 15 seconds) will be looking to push him all the way.

“It’s only a 10km time trial, but it’s always better to have a bigger advantage than a lesser advantage,” Evans acknowledged.

Ups and downs on the road to Macerata

After the weekend’s back-to-back epics, Monday’s stage 6 was a more manageable 178km in length, with the climb of Pietra Rossa providing the only major obstacle ahead of a leg-stinging finishing circuit that took in a series of sharp hills in and around Macerata.

44km into the stage, Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil-DCM) was able to slip the shackles of the peloton and once he got away, the searing early pace that saw almost 47km covered in the first hour relented slightly. At the top of the Pietra Rossa, he had 2:15 over the peloton, but that lead quickly stretched out when Bert Grabsch (HTC-Highroad) bridged across.

50km from home they had 5:40 over a peloton that had remained more or less intact but for an attack by Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo), who jumped clear to take third place at the first intermediate sprint and buttress his lead in the points standings. The break’s ample margin soon began to narrow, however, as the both the rugged terrain around Macerata and the speed of the chasing peloton took their toll. The Lampre-ISD squad led the pursuit with the metronomic Przemyslaw Niemic particularly active in keeping tabs on the escapees.

On the race’s first passage through Macerata, they still had two minutes on the bunch as they led over the climb, but under increased impetus from Lampre-ISD the gap began to dwindle. By the time Bozic and Grabsch came around to Macerata again 19km later for an intermediate sprint, they had just 20 seconds on the bunch and their day was effectively done.

In fact, that intermediate sprint at the second passage through the finish line provided a foretaste of what was to come later on, for while Scarponi got the nod for the final bonus seconds, he was closely marked by Nibali. The Sicilian has already publicly named Scarponi as the danger man at the Giro d’Italia, and their burgeoning rivalry was to be brought into sharper focus by their actions in the race’s frantic final kilometre.

The final lap of the Macerata circuit saw the lead group whittled down still further as Peter Velits (HTC-Highroad) briefly powered clear 9km from home on the rolling, twisting roads. At this point, Alessandro Ballan (BMC) came to the front and put in a gargantuan turn in support of his leader Evans, before George Hincapie pulled the lead group as far as the base of the final 2km haul to the line.

Riders of the calibre of Andy Schleck and Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek) were among those deposited unceremoniously out of the back once the road pitched upwards, but it was at the front end of the race where the real drama took place.

As the home riders attacked and chased one another in turn, Cadel Evans delivered a masterclass of both poise and strength to take a fine stage victory and strike a possibly decisive blow in the battle for overall honours. Perhaps as importantly, it was a forceful demonstration that the confident aggression that marked his 2010 campaign has endured beyond his reign as world champion.

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