Nibali wins atop Prati di Tivo

Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) took the Tirreno-Adriatico stage victory which had escaped him the previous day, winning the queen stage of the race on the snow-covered Prati di Tivo in a solo effort. Roman Kreuziger of Astana was second, with Christopher Horner (RadioShack-Nissan) on his heels in third place successfully defending his overall lead.

The Italian's attack moved him up to third overall, only five seconds behind Kreuziger and 12 behind Horner.

The favourites had gone up the Tivo together, riding down all serious attacks until Nibali took off with less than 4km remaining. Having been foiled on the fourth stage by his teammate Peter Sagan, Nibali was taking no chances in this stage, securing his stage win and pushing himself up into serious contention for the overall title.

“I’m happy to win today,” said Nibali. “But we’ll have to wait for the time trial to see who wins overall. Twelve seconds is a lot to pull back but we’ll see what happens.

“I knew the central part of the climb was the hardest. Horner went hard there and made a selection. When we caught him I saw that everyone else was catching their breath, so I went for it. I felt good and so did the same effort I did to win the stage in Oman. I’ve been focused on winning Tirreno-Adriatico all week and I want to win it.

“Peter (Sagan) partially accepted his mistake yesterday and he worked hard for me today, which shows there no problem in the team.”

Letting Nibali go was a studied decision by Horner. “In the final kilometers when Nibali went, I had to decide which card to play since there were so many bonus seconds available on the line.  If I chased Nibali too hard but faded at the end, Kreuziger would have gained more seconds than just the bonus seconds, so I decided to give away something to Nibali to better protect the jersey.”

He acknowledged that the race is staying tight. “Part of the problem for today was that there were no steep, steep sections on the climb so it wasn’t quite hard enough to make big separations," he said. "I haven’t really looked at tomorrow’s stage yet to see if there are dangerous sections but I think it will all come down to the TT.  I think Kreuziger and myself are pretty well matched in that department.  It could go either way.” 

Another long break and a climb to the snow

There were three climbs on the day, making this the race's Queen Stage. The Atri came at 63.8, and the Piano Roseto at 161.9, with the snowy Prati di Tivo at the very end.

The day's break was made up of Jens Debusschere (Lotto-Belisol), Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Kristoff Goddaert (AG2R La Mondiale). They pushed out their advantage to over ten minutes, and carried 9:30 over the Piano Roseto.

Liquigas-Cannondale finally started to give chase and the gap came slowly down. With 26 km to go, Goddaert had fallen off the lead, leaving the remaining two to tackle the descent and closing climb alone.

The gap started dropping dramatically on that brutal finishing climb, with first Debusschere and then finally Martinez being absorbed back into the field. The charge was led by Omega Pharma-QuickStep, and with 10km to go, the race came down to about a 25-rider strong peloton.

The first attacks out of the field came with some 8km to go. Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) was first to give it a try, but he was snapped up by Paolo Tiralongo of Astana, who just kept on going. The attacks then came fast and furious, as they passed the first snow alongside the road.

Tiralongo held on to his lead, though, as the favourites stayed together in the field and let the others go off the front. Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R La Mondiale) and Vladimir Gusev (Katusha) made a good break to try and catch the Italian, but were unsuccessful.

Horner kept things under control, as Nibali, Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) and Kreuziger, amongst others, formed a group, carefully eying one another. Peter Velits, Omega Pharma-Quick Step's hope for the day, had fallen behind on the climb and finished the day 1:10 down.

With just under 4km to go, Nibali attacked out of the lead group, looking for the win he missed out on the previous day. Tiralongo fell back into the high-powered chase group around Horner.

There was more and more snow on the ground as they approached the summit, but the road was clear and dry and the sun was shining. Nibali was able to slowly build his lead up, second by second.

As he was only 34 seconds down overall, Horner had to keep a close eye on Nibali and when the gap reached 26 seconds with less than 2 km, the American led the serious chase to catch Nibali.

The Liquigas-Cannondale Italian charged under the final km marker, fighting until the last for every possible second. Horner maintained his overall lead by following Kreuziger across the line some 15 seconds later.