With Joaquim Rodriguez out of the race, Katusha are only focused on stage wins in the Giro d'Italia and today's stage was a good opportunity for Daniel Moreno. When he realized that the break would stay away, however, he decided to save energy for later.

The second day of climbing brought success from a two-man breakaway, distancing them more than one minute from the maglia rosa group and giving Pieter Weening his second individual career Giro win. At 172 km, the stage ended uphill at the Sestola ski station after almost four-and-a-half hours of riding. Weening was part of an original 14-man break that included Team Katusha’s Eduard Vorganov.

“Today we knew there was a good chance that the breakaway would stay clear until the end," Team Director José Azevedo said. "We asked everyone except Gusev to try to get into the break. After 50k’s a group finally went and it was again Vorganov who made it today. But in the end the last climb was too steep for him.

"Dani was riding in the leader’s group and is hoping to try for a stage win, but when he saw they would not be bringing back the breakaway, he just took it easy.”

I

t took almost 50 km of furious racing for the break to go clear, but once it managed to get away, the gap grew to almost nine minutes. BMC controlled from the front for race leader Cadel Evans and stayed attentive to protect his lead. Weening attacked on the descent of the second of three climbs, catching the group by surprise and immediately opening up a gap. David Malacarne (Europcar) bridged to Weening and the two of them worked well together to distance the others, carrying their advantage all the way to the line on the uphill finish at Sestola. Weening outsprinted Malacarne to take the win, both of them a full 42-seconds to third place finisher Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2R). Cadel Evans retained the race lead and the pink jersey.

Azevedo shared team rider information, saying, “Gusev crashed again today along with a big group after the break went away. This is a second crash for him and today’s was not so bad, but coming on top of his previous crash it makes it hard for him. We hope for good recovery from him tomorrow and also on the next stage which is a sprint.”

The peloton goes into the second rest day tomorrow.