Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r) was the big winner in today's stage of the Giro d'Italia when he made a brave attack on the final climb to gain 30 seconds on his rivals. Despite moving into fourth overall, the tiny Italian refuses to change his objectives which remain a stage win and a top 5 result.

With a rather easy final climb, today's stage of the Giro d'Italia was not expected to produce any different between the GC contenders at the Giro d'Italia but Domenico Pozzovivo changed the script. The Italian had studied the climb and noticed that there was a very steep section just before the flatter final 4km and he set out with a mission to win the stage.

First he made sure that he had teammate Julien Berard in the early break from which eventual winner Pieter Weening took off, and later he sent Alexis Vuillermoz off on the final climb. Finally, he made his own move on the steepest part and when his rivals looked at each other, he was able to cross the line in third, gaining 26 seconds and 4 bonus seconds on the other GC contenders.

Despite the great showing and a fourth place on GC, he refuses to change his objectives in the race.

“I’m sticking to my objectives from before the Giro. I want a place in the top five and a stage win,” he told Rai at the finish. “It was no secret that I liked this climb a lot, at least up to the last four kilometres. I tried to make the difference in the hardest part and looked to save some energy for the flatter roads at the end. The objective was to win the stage. It’s a pity that two riders were left out in front but I’m still happy with how I rode.

“It’s a pity that we didn’t manage to get the stage win but the team was able to apply tactics decided this morning and the whole team worked well. In the final kilometers, I saw that there was still a lot of riders present in the pack and I asked Alexis (Vuillermoz) to attack in order to see what was happening. I tried my luck, I knew there was a flat part but I aimed to gain as many seconds as possible on my opponents and it paid off.

“For the moment I’m feeling very good but there are still two weeks to go and certainly the others will improve. I’ve been in crescendo since the start of the season and the idea was to get to the Giro in top condition. We’ve ridden two good stages as a team. Yesterday in particular, we were on the front a lot, today we were a bit further back but I think that we’re going in the right direction as a team.”

“Next week there’s the time trial and that’s very long but there are some hills on the parcours. I think I’ll be able to defend myself."