Cavendish The Supreme Sprinter in Giro Stage 13

On the Giro d'Italia's Stage 13, a basically flat 176-kilometer run-in to Florence, the stage looked set up for a sprint, and once again, the peloton's dominant sprinter Mark Cavendish (Columbia) made it first to the line ahead of sprint rivals Alessandro Petacchi (LPR-Brakes) and Allan Davis (QuickStep).

The day started off with an early breakaway of three, featuring Leonardo Scarselli (ISD), Mikhail Ignatiev (Team Katusha) and Björn Schröder (Team Milram). As typical of a flat-stage breakaway, the trio built up a lead of slightly over six minutes before the peloton started to crack down and reel them in.

Teams Garmin and Columbia moved to the front to get their men Tyler Farrar and Mark Cavendish, respectively, ready for the sprint finish.

Trying to avoid imminent demise, Schroder sprinted away from his breakaway companions with 30 kilometers remaining and stretched out his lead back to almost two minutes.

However, the peloton began raging at nearly 60 kph on the flat ground to reel in the German rider with roughly 15 kilometers to go, and he was caught with around eight kilometers left to race. 

Garmin worked very hard to lead out their man Farrar.  In the previous days, they have noted that their sprint train works well in the last four kilometers, but when the sprint actually happens, Farrar is left with no teammates and has to fight for himself against the nearly unstoppable final kilometer Columbia strike force of Edvald Boasson Hagen, Mark Renshaw, and Mark Cavendish.

Once again, that happened today.  Garmin did a lot of work between four and one kilometers to go, but left Farrar isolated, and the Columbia sprint assault of Boasson Hagen and Renshaw delivered Cavendish right to 250 meters to go, where the Manxman opened up a noticeable gap and took the day—exactly the same tactic that the British rider used on his other two Giro victories so far.

This may be the last stage for the sprinters.  Every stage remaining either has large mountains, a hilltop finish, or both.  Some of them may choose to leave the race tonight and prepare for other objectives rather than suffer in the mountains.

The GC men, though, will begin the second half of their battles tomorrow, as Stage 14 from Campi Bisenzio to Bologna will take in five mountain passes with a hilltop finish in Bologna. 

It will probably not shake up the classification, but they will need to be attentive over the undulating terrain.  If a breakaway does not succeed, Danilo DiLuca (LPR-Brakes) may even want to attack on the mountaintop finish to gain back some bonus seconds and win the stage.