6th stage of Tirreno - Adriatico is the queen stage with two mountains on the 166 km long stage. It's not exactly the toughest mountains in the world, but they will definitely make a difference. Personally, I have Ricco, Pellizotti, Lökvist and the likes as main contenders, but Cya-logic has pointed out Savoldelli, Marzoli and Rabon as the main riders. Time will tell
Early on the stage we had several and several of attacks. When you thought one attack had settled down, a new bunch of riders attacked, forcing the peloton to react. In the end, 14 riders got away: Martin, Johansson, Sestili, Crawford, Summerhill, Maisto, Illiano, Jufre, Van de Walle, Azevedo, Zaugg, Eichler, Van Garderen and Mazet. Maisto seems to be the best climber of the 14 riders, but we will see what happens
With 100 km. to go, the 14 riders had a gap of 4'43 to the peloton. Johansson has at this point had lots of troubles with keeping up, but he is still in the group. Also Azevedo has had troubles on the small hills, clearly showing that he's getting old. Maybe for the same reason, they are the only two riders not to relay in the break which is still working very well together.
We are now at the foot of the first mountain, and there's 70 km. to goal. They have increased their gap to 6'35, and Gazetta is still leading the peloton - which they have been doing all they. At the same point, one of the stage favourites, Parra Pinto of Suzuki, has had a puncture and will struggle to get back.
In front, several riders are in trouble. Half way up the mountain, Johansson is dropped, and shortly after, Azevedo does the same. In the peloton, the size is being reduced a lot, although none of the race favourites are dropped at this point. This has also had an effect on the gap to the front group which has decreased to 3'50. Kilometres later, the breakaway, who has now dropped Van de Walle, reaches the top with Jufre taking 5 points, Van Garderen 3 and Illiano 1. The gap to the peloton is down to 2'15 with 40 km to go.
On the downhill section, several riders from the breakaway tried to break loose, but without luck. They had obviously realised that it would be more than difficult to keep the peloton away for the win as they had just 2'03 with 15 km to go - and a mountain of 13 km to climb.
Right at the foot of the climb, Van Garderen tried his luck again, and no one could go with him to begin with. Jufre started the chase to reel in Garderen. Meanwhile, much more important, in the peloton Di Luca opened up for the attacks. He has obviously remembered the fact that the best way to protect a jersey is to attack
Di Luca blew past the breakaway riders, closely followed by Pellizotti and Sanchez Gil. And out of nowhere, it was suddenly Nibali who went past not only the escapees, but also Pellizotti, Sanchez Gil and Cataldo who had been caught in-between. Shortly after, Ghisalberti, Lövkvist and Rodriguez Oliver attacked, but they didn't manage to get up to neither Di Luca nor Nibali. Alone in front was now Di Luca, and with 5 km to go, we had this situation:
E1: Di Luca
E2: Nibali, Van Gardereren +25
E3: Ghisalberti, Rodriguez Oliver and Lövkvist +17
E4: Peloton (Pellzotti, Sanchez Gil, Caruso, Ricco, Sella, Bettini) +23
Surprisingly, Bettini also wanted to be a part of the battle and attacked. He was followed by Cobo, Carrara and Ricco who all managed to get up to the Lövkvist-group. They also managed to reel back Nibali, but with just 2000 metres to go, it's still Di Luca alone in front with 50 seconds to the favourites group behind him. He even managed to increase the gap with 9 seconds on the next 1000 metres while the group behind him were losing time to the peloton which was led by Anza and Kroon.
Here we are at the start of the sprint. Bettini is leading, Carrara second, Cobo third. You can see the peloton right behind him. What you can't see is that Di Luca is in front, on his way to the victory after a beautiful defence of his jersey.
Di Luca takes the win without celebrating! He just wants as much time as possible. You can see the peloton in the background, sprinting their way up. It's still Bettini leading, but Anza and Ricco has fought their way up along with Kroon.
Bettini and co. reaches the line 1 minute after Di Luca! 40 seconds after, Pellizotti comes in with Sanchez Gil, Gerdemann, Moletta, Monfort and Vanendert. Pelli is without a doubt a disappointed man today.
