Radioshack were one of the key protagonists in today's 16th stage of the Giro d'Italia as the team were one of two teams to chase down the 22-man move that looked like the winning one. However, the team ended up as one of the day's big losers when GC captain Robert Kiserlovski lost time on the final Andrate climb.

Just as spectators, riders and TV viewers all prepared to watch the big 22-man group battle it out for the win in today's 16th stage of the Giro d'Italia, Radioshack and Katusha moved to the front of the peloton and during the next 40km, they brought back most of the escapees. At the bottom of the day's final climb with less than 25km to go, only 8 riders were left ahead and they only enjoyed a 1 minute advantages.

However, Radioshack did not get any reward for their hard effort as the team's GC rider Robert Kiserlovski was one of the day's big losers. The Croatian lost contact on the ascent and ended up losing 1.37 to his main rivals.

"This wasn't something we expected, not at all," sports director Jose Azevedo said. "Robert had a bad day and he fell behind on the last climb of the day - right when the game was on between the GC riders."

In fact the team's hard work had been done with the sole purpose of protecting Kiserlovski's 11th place in GC as Damiano Caruso and Wilco Kelderman from the early break both threatened the Croatian's position. Instead of consolidating what he had, he ended up moving down to 14th on a very bad day for the Luxembourg team.

"The break was composed of 22 riders, with none of our team in there," Azevedo said. "Damiano Caruso and Wilco Kelderman were in there, and they became threats for Robert's GC ambitions when the gap grew bigger than 5 minutes, so we started pulling."

"Robert didn't have a bad day in the last two weeks and nobody really expected him to yield today. It's really too bad, because he could have gained time on someone like Pozzovivo, who also lost time today. But the Giro is far from over. It's important now that he recovers from today, both physically and mentally. We have some tough stages ahead of us and his goal, the top ten, is still viable."

Radioshack will turn their attention to sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo in tomorrow's stage to Vicenza while Kiserlovski will get his chance to take back the lost time on the three big stages in the Dolomites from Thursday to Saturday. Starting at 14.15 you can follow the action form tomorrow's stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.