With Joaquim Rodriguez out of the race, Katusha have had no luck in the Giro d'Italia but the team is still determined to take a stage win. Today they rode aggressively with Alberto Losada, Eduard Vorganov and Daniel Moreno.

It was a long stage at 249 km in Wednesday’s Giro d’Italia, as the second full week of the Grand Tour really begins to wear on the riders. Today’s stage featured a challenging category 2 climb at 30 km from the finish that saw Team Katusha in the heart of the action.

“The first 80 km of the race, the peloton did not let anyone escape," Vorganov said. "I tried many times to attack but the bunch kept everything under control. After 80 km we finally managed to get away. Dani Moreno and I were in the break.

"We were confident that the break would stay in the front until the end, but just before the last climb, the group with the pink jersey caught us, because of the chasing work of Androni. But we will not stop here. We go on. My day will come and our team will keep on fighting for a stage win.”

Alberto Losada added:

“Today was a hard day. The team was always present with Vorganov and Moreno in the front. On the climb I tried something but Quick-Step and BMC closed the gap so in the end it amounted to nothing. There were some crashes early in the stage too, making all of it a difficult day.” 

A 14-man break was brought back on the climb. Losada positioned himself in the front and was in a small chasing group that went over the climb just behind Trek’s Arrendondo. On the descent as things started to pull back together, Tinkoff-Saxo Bank’s Michael Rogers put in a searing attack that he managed to hold all the way to the finish line in Savona. The solo victory gave Rogers plenty of time to celebrate with the chase group at 10-seconds behind. Second and third places went to Simon Geschke (Giant-Shimano) and Enrico Battaglin (Bardiani-CSF).  There was no change in the overall with BMC’s Cadel Evans still in the race lead after almost 50-hours of racing.

Thursday brings the first of two individual time trials. The stage begins in Barbaresco and ends in Barolo at 41.9km and will bring some changes at the top of the leader board for the first time in many days. The route features a climb in the early part of the stage and closes out with a smaller climb and slight uphill rise at the finish.