Androni Giocattoli played a surprisingly prominent role in yesterday's stage 11 of the Giro d'Italia when the small Italian pro continental team almost single-handedly brought back a very strong 14-rider breakaway. At one point, race leader Cadel Evans asked them to wait for a few riders that had crashed but team manager Gianni Savio refuses that he is the Australian's vassals.

When a 14-rider breakaway took off in yesterday's stage of the Giro d'Italia, most expected it to stay away to the finish. However, Androni Giocattoli that have been part of virtually all breakaways in the race so far, had missed one of the few that was likely to make it, and the team refused to accept their fate.

With the plan to launch Franco Pellizotti on the final climb, the team hit the front with mot of its riders and gradually started pulling back the break. Around 70km from the line, however, a crash brought down several riders, including Steve Morabito, the trusted lieutenant of race leader Cadel Evans.

Evans moved to the front to ask the team to wait for the riders that had been involved in the tumble but the apparently the Italian team refused to do so. However, manager Gianni Savio refuses that his team didn't behave in a fair way.

" We are not vassals of anyone," he said. "We respected the rules of fair play as we asked out riders to slow down when there was a crash. When we were certain that everybody was back on their bikes and that no one was seriously injured, we told them to continue their work."

Savio also explains the reason for his team's decision to chase so hard.

"As we didn't have a rider in the break, we took the resonsibilty to chase as we planned to launch our captain."

Pellizotti made the expected move on the final climb and was part of a strong 6-rider group that formed just after the top. It was brought back moments later and so the team came away from the stage empty-handed-