CHERASCO, Italy: Mark Cavendish claimed his fourth win of the 96th Giro d’Italia yesterday after sprinting to victory in the 13th stage, at 254 km the longest of the race, from Busseto to Cherasco.
Italian Vincenzo Nibali remained in the race leader’s pink jersey with Australia’s Cadel Evans in second place at 41secs.
Earlier, top favorite Bradley Wiggins and defending champion Ryder Hesjedal pulled out of the race due to illness.
Cavendish, a former world champion from the Isle of Man, took his 13th win from five editions on the Giro on Thursday.
A number of teams, including Australians Orica-GreenEdge, whose top sprinter is Matt Goss, had hoped to stop the Manxman dominating again on one of the last remaining chances for the non-climbers.
However their top finisher was Goss’s lead-out man, Brett Lancaster, who finished in fourth, ahead of Italian Elia Viviani.
After Viviani’s Cannondale team had taken over the fast pace-setting in the final kilometer Cavendish began his sprint early but held on to keep Italian Giacomo Nizzolo and Slovenian Luka Mezgec off his wheel at the finish line.
Earlier, a seven-man breakaway enjoyed a lead of nearly 14 minutes after escaping from the peloton at the 21km mark.
However efforts by Goss and Cavendish’s respective teams soon ate into their sizeable advantage, with Spaniard Pablo Lastras the last rider from that escape to be caught with 15km to race by a small counter-attacking group.
Italian Giampaolo Caruso managed to attack solo from the new lead group with around 6.5 km remaining but was reeled in with 1.5 km left of the 4km home straight.
Cavendish, who turns 28 next week, now has 14 Giro wins, 23 Tour de France wins and three stage wins from the Tour of Spain.
On Saturday’s 14th stage the race heads into the high mountains for a 168 km run between Cervere and Bardonecchia, with the finish line at the end of a 7.3 km ascent to Jafferau, where Belgian legend Eddy Merckx prevailed on the Giro’s last visit, in 1972.
Meanwhile, the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency on Friday lashed out at the UCI world cycling federation for failing to take any decisive action to clean up the sport since the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.
Travis Tygart said after meeting with European Union sports officials, that “all those who cherish the Olympic values, particularly fair play and a level playing field, deserve more.” After the discussions, which were also attended by UCI President Pat McQuaid, Tygart listed only one measure taken by cycling authorities, which was to shut down an independent panel looking into the relation between cycling leaders and Armstrong, who has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
The independent commission had been established to examine claims the UCI had accepted financial donations from Armstrong as well as covering up samples.
“They disbanded the independent commission that was set up at the very time it began to actually act independent,” Tygart said.
When the UCI shut down the panel two months after its start, it said that it wanted an amnesty-style “truth and reconciliation” commission instead.
The UCI has said that it had tested Armstrong 189 times and caught top riders Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, which proved helpful in the investigation against Armstrong.
