PULA, Croatia, 24 May 2004 — Fassa Bortolo rider Alessandro Petacchi equaled the Tour of Italy’s record of seven stage wins in the one edition of the race by claiming the 14th stage here yesterday.
The 30-year-old sprint ace timed 4hr 08min 58sec to come in ahead of US rider Fred Rodriguez and fellow Italian Marco Velo in a dash for the line, with Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych of Landbouwkrediet holding the overall leader’s pink jersey.
It was the 13th Giro success for Petacchi who becomes just the fourth rider of the modern era to claim seven stages in the one race after Belgian duo Roger De Vlaeminck (1975) and Freddy Maertens (1977) and Italian Beppe Saronni (1980).
In the pre-war era Italian super sprinter Alfredo Binda, the first rider to win a world championship title, won a massive 12 stages in 1927.
Such was Binda’s hold on the race that the Giro organizer, Armando Cougnet, asked him not to compete in the 1930 edition.
There is little chance of the same being asked of Petacchi, who said he still has the chance to grab nine stage wins overall before the race ends next week.
“The team did some remarkable work today. In the final bend everything was set up, and I just had to dig in when I saw that Rodriguez was about to launch his sprint,” said the Italian.
Moreau Wins Tour of Languedoc-Roussillon
In Sete, France, Frenchman Christophe Moreau, of the Credit Agricole team, won the 54th edition of the Tour of Languedoc-Roussillon yesterday.
American five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, of the US Postal team, won the final stage held over 203km between Florac and here as he continued preparations for his planned sixth Tour win in July.
Moreau, a former winner of the Tour de France prologue who came fourth overall on the Tour in 2000, set up his overall victory yesterday after crushing the opposition on Saturday’s climb to Mende. The 31-year-old Frenchman took the overall lead on Saturday after holding off US Postal’s reigning Olympic champion Viatcheslav Ekimov.
