COMUNICATI
STAMPA DALLA CORSA
CAVENDISH
CLAIMS HIS THIRD VICTORY AT THE GIRO D’ITALIA
Florence,
Italy, 22nd May, 2009 -
Mark Cavendish sprinted to victory in Florence
on Friday, taking his third Giro d’Italia
stage win in six days and his eleventh win of the season.
Cavendish
crashed early on stage 13, but the was able to get back
into the racing and win the 176 kilometre stage from Lido
di Camaoire to Florence, a day after his 24th
birthday. Already victorious on stages nine and 11, Cavendish
powered across the line on stage 13 ahead of Italy’s
Alessandro Petacchi. He paid tribute to his team
for putting him in the best possible position to do so.
“I
can safely say I’ve got the best support team in
the world and the best lead-out man [Mark Renshaw],”
Cavendish said afterwards. “They
always put me in the perfect position for the sprint and
all I have to do is finish it off. Today we didn’t
take the sprint on as we have done in the last few days.
We played it cool and then used our strength to get past.”
“This
was certainly the most difficult stage of the three I
have won. There were a lot of teams pushing for success
and that made it difficult for us. But I’m lucky
that I’ve got guys that are super-dedicated, Konsta
[Konstantsin Sivtsov] is here for the general classification
but he still did a lot of work in the last ten kilometres.
Edvald [Boasson Hagen] is tired but still did a great
job. I think Mark [Renshaw] is the best lead out man in
the world, he does lot of work in the last kilometre.
I don’t need to look, I just follow his back wheel
and then finish it off.”
Cavendish
said he had started the Giro d’Italia with
three objectives, amongst them Friday’s stage.
“There
were three special stages for me in this Giro.
I knew I had a chance of winning whilst wearing the pink
jersey in Trieste, then I wanted to win the Milan Show
stage [stage nine] and then I wanted to win here close
to my home. I have an apartment in Quarrata 20 kilometres
from here, we went near it in the final ten kilometres
of the race and a lot of people from there came to see
me, as well as my fiancée Melissa. It’s important
when you have got people you know there watching, it’s
always beautiful to make them feel proud.”
Stage
13 will be Cavendish’s last stage of the 2009
Giro d’Italia. He will head home today and begin
his recovery and lead up to the .
“I
love this race and I would love to stay until the end
and support my team and give back to the race,”
Cavendish said. “I
will discuss the options with my team tonight and make
a deTour de Francecision.”
After
discussions the decision was made that Cavendish
will withdraw.
“He
has had a very successful couple of weeks at the Giro,”
commented Team Manager Rolf Aldag, “but
he is still young and he has a long career ahead of him.
He has already raced 55 days this year and it is our view
that the best thing for Mark is to take some recovery
now before the Tour.”
In
what is proving to be Columbia-Highroad’s
most successful major Tour ever, Cavendish stage
win is the squad’s sixth out of a possible 13 victories
in this year’s Tour of Italy.
The
team has also taken the team time trial, three stages
with Cavendish and another two stages with Edvald
Boasson Hagen and Kanstantsin Sivtsov. Lövkvist
is currently leading the Best Young Rider’s competition,
whilst Cavendish and Lövkvist also
headed the overall classification in the race’s first
few days.
May,
22nd 2009
Teamwork puts Farrar in the mix
again - Giro d’Italia, stage 13
Race report from Matt White
Today
was the best lead-out we have had yet for Tyler.
The
combination of riders we have working for and with him
is new, so we’re happy with five top five placements.
A stage win would have been nice, but we’re still
a young team. We may have fallen a bit short of today’s
goal but it wasn’t for a lack of commitment! There’s
still a lot of racing to be had here and for the rest
of the season. On to stage 14!
Mori
23° in volata a Firenze, Furlan 9° in Spagna
Ruote
veloci alla ribalta nella 13^ tappa del Giro d'Italia,
la Lido di Camaiore-Firenze.
Al
termine dei 176 km di corsa è stato Cavendish
il più rapido: sua la volata per la vittoria, sprint
al quale ha provato a prendere parte anche Manuele Mori
per la Lampre-NGC. Il toscano blu-fucsia non ha
però trovato la via giusta per farsi largo tra
i più quotati velocisti e ha dovuto tagliare il
traguardo in 23^posizione.
In gruppo Bruseghin e Cunego; tutto immutato
in classifica generale.
Da segnalare che per la 14^ (Campi Bisenzio-San Luca)
e la 15^ tappa (Forlì-Faenza) sulla seconda ammiraglia
della Lampre-NGC siederà Fabio Baldato,
il quale sostituirà Fabrizio Bontempi (impegni
personali non prorogabili per il ds bresciano).
"Mi
fa piacere debuttare al Giro d'Italia da direttore
sportivo, dopo aver percorso in sella alla bici tante
corse rosa
- ha spiegato Baldato - Mi
troverò in ammiraglia in due tappe impegnative,
anche sul piano tattico: questo è per me certamente
stimolante dal punto di vista professionale, ringrazio
la squadra per avermi dato questa opportunità".
