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Giro d'Italia 2011: sprinters surprised by a final attack by Oscar Gatto in the 8th stage

Added: saturday 14 May 2011 at 22:50:00

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Everyone was expecting one of the sprinters as the winner of the eighth stage of the Giro d'Italia 2011 from Sapri to Tropea over 217 flat kilometers.
They did not however count on the power of Oscar Gatto (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) in the last 2 kilometers where he did a solo attack which surprised the sprinters. Remarkable: one of the big favourites for the final victory, Alberto Contador (Team Saxobank-Sungard) tried, without success, to take him back.
The summary of the 8th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2011: Sapri > Tropea
The story of this stage was written by a huge escape (208 km) of two Italians, Leonardo Giordani (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) and Mirko Selvaggi (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) who got a maximum gap of nearly 11 minutes. After a very special sprint in Sant'Eufemia Lamezia as a memory of some local riders who were killed there in an accident with a car a few months ago, the gap dropped to 6'30" at 50 kilometers from the finish.

While the sprinters were chasing, the gap went further down to 1'16" with still 15 kilometers to go. The peloton swallowed them at 8 kilometers from the finish, while the sprinters tried to get a good position knowing that the road book mentioned some dangerous curves at 3.5 km.

Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) wanted to take a second victory here in his red jersey while Mark Cavendish (Team HTC-Highroad) also knew there are only three chances left for him to win a stage.

Even though the speed is really high in the last winding kilometers, the courageous Oscar Gatto (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) manages to do a final break away at 2 kilometers to go and takes the victory just ahead of Alberto Contador (Team Saxobank-Sungard). It was surprising to see that "El Pistolero" seemed to stop his effort at one time, looking behind, before going strong again without however getting back on Gatto. This counter attack was successful anyway because he took 5 seconds on the other favourites for the final victory and also earned 12 seconds time bonus with his second place.

Undoubtedly this will be the most beautiful victory of his carreer for Oscar Gatto, even more since he defeated Tour winner Alberto Contador with a wheel length.
By force Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) wins the sprint for the third place out of the meanwhile crumbled peloton.

Pieter Weening (Rabobank) may once more collect the pink jersey for the leader while he arrived at 5 seconds of the winner on place 29.
The classifications of the Giro d'Italia 2011 after the 8th stage
The stage classification for the 8th stage: Sapri > Tropea
1/ Oscar Gatto (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) - 4h59'45"
2/ Alberto Contador (Team Saxobank-Sungard)
3/ Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) - +0'05"
4/ Alexander Kristoff (BMC Racing Team)
5/ Roberto Ferrari (Androni Giocattoli)
The general classification after the 8th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2011
1/ Pieter Weening (Rabobank) - 28h09'49"
2/ Marco Pinotti (Team HTC-Highroad) - +0'02"
3/ Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Team HTC-Highroad)
4/ Christophe Le Mével (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - +0'05"
5/ Alberto Contador (Team Saxobank-Sungard) - +0'13"
Points classification
1/ Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) - 64 points
2/ Christophe Le Mével (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - 48
3/ Roberto Ferrari (Androni Giocattoli) - 42
4/ Alberto Contador (Team Saxobank-Sungard) - 40
5/ Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) - 38
Mountain classification
1/ Bart De Clercq (Omega Pharma-Lotto) - 11 points
2/ Martin Kohler (BMC Racing Team) - 10
3/ Federico Canutti (Colnago-CSF Inox) - 9
4/ Gianluca Brambilla (Colnago-CSF Inox) - 8
5/ Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) - 7
Best young rider
Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank) still leads this classification while Francesco Masciarelli (Astana) loses 21 seconds.

1/ Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank) – 28h10'17"
2/ Roman Kreuziger (Astana) - +0'16"
3/ Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) - +0'24"
4/ Francesco Masciarelli (Astana) - +0'52"
5/ Kevin Seeldrayers (Quick Step) - +0'54"
by Thomas Vergouwen
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