The fifth day in the Giro d’Italia had the first mountain top finish, on the Abetone the GC contenders made it into a real fight as early escapee Polanc won the stage.

With two heavy climbs on the menu, 5 riders escaped from the bunch early in the stage. On the final climb, it was Jan Polanc who showed the strongest climber’s capacities from the breakaway group. Alberto Contador (Tinkoff – Saxo) takes over the pink jersey from Simon Clarke (Orica – GreenEDGE).

For Team Giant-Alpecin it was a day of energy-saving, ahead of tomorrow’s stage in which a bunch sprint is the most likely scenario. Caleb Fairly was first home for the team, he passed the finish line at the Abetone in 94th.

After the stage, coach Addy Engels said: “All guys came in safely and on time. Today’s stage was too hard to play a role and to battle for a nice result.

“Tomorrow there will be a new chance for us in the bunch sprint and we decided to not spend too much energy today so that we have a fresh team at the start.”