For the first time in tohis year's Giro d'Italia, Joaquim Rodriguez showed himself when the race hit the hills in today's fifth stage. After his Katusha team had dominated the finale, the Spaniard was set up by his teammate Daniel Moreno but hit the front too early and fade back into seventh.

Stage 5 on Wednesday in the 97th Giro d’Italia brought the first of the climbs with a middle mountain stage at 203 km beginning in Taranto and ending in Viggiano. Joaquim Rodriguez put his Team Katusha on the front to set the stage for an attack on the final climb.

“It was great teamwork today,” said Katusha leader Joaquim ‘Purito’ Rodriguez. “Everyone did a perfect job. It’s possible I attacked just a little bit early, but it was difficult to judge with all of the wind. It was such a strong headwind.

"The perfect finish for me would have been another 1 km further at the real top of the climb, which we had seen on the earlier lap. It was a bit of a missed opportunity but the steeper finishes still to come will suit me better.”

Rodriguez tried to break away at under 1 km to go, but Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) ramped up his speed and took the victory as the first Italian rider to win a stage in this year’s Giro. Second place went to Cadel Evans (BMC) and third to Julian Arrendondo (Trek) at one second. Rodriguez took seventh place on the same time. 

The peloton saw the finish line before tackling a long descent and coming around to take the climb again. The wind had been strong all day, but picked up in the late afternoon. Combined with the rain that started to come down, the descent made for some nervous moments prior to the finish.

“It was a long stage because of the wind," Rodriguez said. "The descent at 12 km from the finish was dangerous but fortunately no crashes from our riders.”

Team director José Azevedo liked what he saw on stage 5:

“It’s important that we show a strong team performance and motivation. We have a leader with our full trust in Purito. Today we showed our big ambitions. There are plenty more stages to go.”

Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) retained the pink jersey for a fourth stage and now holds 14 seconds to teammate Pieter Weening and 15-seconds to Evans. Joaquim Rodriguez moved up to 40th place with +1.47.

A solid breakaway of 11 riders went clear early in the stage with some quick sprinters among the names, building an advantage of five minutes, but their effort was nullified once they hit the later climbs.  Attacks followed, most notably a big effort from Italian Gianluca Brambilla, but with Team Katusha on the front, it was all together for the last kilometer with Ulissi emerging the winner for the day.

Thursday brings stage 6 and one of the longest stages in this year’s Tour of Italy. At 247 km the stage begins in Sassano and ends in Montecassino with two rated climbs, including the category 2 uphill finish.