Pellizotti Wins Giro Stage 17 to Blockhaus; GC Times Shrink

The Giro d'Italia's Stage 16 on Monday was one of attrition, willpower, survival, and strategy.  It's daunting 237 kilometers, six mountains, 110 degree heat, and over seven hours in the saddle, led many seasoned professionals, such as Lance Armstrong, to call it their hardest day on the bike ever in their careers.

Today's Stage 17 up to the Blockhaus summit was just the opposite, almost an anomaly within a Grand Tour.

It's meager 83 kilometers, a mostly flat run-in up to the 19-kilometer Blockhaus ascent, called for a punchy and well-timed attack. This was not a war of attrition; the winning time was less than two and a half hours, a full five fewer hours than on Monday.

General Classification runner-up Danilo DiLuca (LPR-Brakes) was the big favourite to take the stage today in his home region in Italy.  He has also, for the past month and especially during the Giro, been raising money for the earthquake victims of his Abruzzo home region by selling pink wristbands.

A win on home turf would make the fans very proud.

A breakaway of 10 riders formed, but it was a faraway dream at best to win today's stage from the breakaway; the GC men were ravenously eating up the ascent of the Blockhaus.

Carlos Sastre's Cervelo team took up the chase at the bottom of the mountain, hoping to launch him into an attack to gain back time on race leader Denis Menchov (Rabobank).

As the Cervelo team started to break apart one by one, Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) launched a decisive attack on the slope with 10 kilometers remaining. He quickly gained an advantage of 20 seconds and kept on rolling.

Lance Armstrong (Astana) came into the headlines as he attacked the peloton in his own right and started to bridge the gap up to Pellizotti. The Texan, while building up a noticeable lead on the peloton, began to lose steam as DiLuca attacked.

DiLuca put in a solid attack to try and distance Menchov, but the Russian race leader showed his excellent form and experience and quickly marked DiLuca. The Russian-Italian duo took mountains-leader Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas) with them at their brutal speed up the slope.

With Armstrong caught and dropped, the four riders started to make some ground on Pellizotti. Other race contenders Levi Leipheimer (Astana) and Carlos Sastre, who wanted to attack today instead of lose ground, were dropped by the elite group up front.

Pellizotti had a 30-second lead on the DiLuca group.  DiLuca was getting no help at all from Menchov and Garzelli because it was his responsibility to go after the win if he wanted to gain time.  Basso was dropped.

Pellizotti roared up the final kilometers and opened his advantage to take the win by 42 seconds over the second group.

Behind, Garzelli opened up the sprint and took second place. With it, he took valuable mountains points to add to his jersey.

DiLuca came in third, able to distance Menchov by a few seconds in the final 200 meters, and gained an eight-second time bonus.

The overall classification takes a hit today after the short, explosive stage up to Blockhaus.  Menchov keeps the overall lead, but when DiLuca grabbed a time bonus, Menchov now has his lead over the Italian down to 26 seconds.

Pellizotti, with his well executed attack, moves up to third place at two minutes behind.

Other contenders lost even more time today.  Ivan Basso moves up to fourth, but lost more time to come in 3:28 behind overall.  Sastre dropped to fifth at 3:30 back, while Leipheimer continued his downward spiral and now sits at sixth, 4:32 adrift.

Tomorrow's Stage 18 contains one mountain early on, but then is mostly flat into the finish.  The majority of the sprinters have already left the race, including Mark Cavendish (Columbia) and Tyler Farrar (Garmin). 

It could be Alessandro Petacchi's (LPR-Brakes) stage for the taking, assuming his LPR team will be ready to reel in a breakaway after working for DiLuca in the mountains.