2013 Giro d'Italia Stage 12 Results & Recap
Stage 12 of the 2013 Giro d'Italia is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Nibali keeps the maglia rosa
Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) continued his dominance of the sprinter-friendly stages at the Giro d'Italia as he took the 100th victory of his career in Treviso. The Manx Missile claimed the third win of his 2013 Giro campaign, while French champion Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) and Luka Mezgec (Argos-Shimano) rounded out the top three.
Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) finished comfortably in the field to retain his maglia rosa while the big loser of stage 12 was Bradley Wiggins (Sky), dropped with 40km to go on the descent off the day's final KOM and conceding more than three minutes by the time he reached the finish.
The break of the day formed soon after the peloton left the start city of Longarone, and the five escapees, Fabio Felline (Androni Giocattoli), Maxim Belkov (Katusha), Bert De Backer (Argos-Shimano) plus Vacansoleil-DCM teammates Marco Marcato and Maurits Lammertink, nearly stole the show from the sprinters. With the wet roads perhaps tempering the peloton's pursuit in the stage's endgame, the catch was ultimately made just 500 metres from the finish.
"We came here wanting to win every sprint, and so far, weâ??ve done it convincingly, leading the peloton from start to finish," said Cavendish. "Everyone worked to bring the breakaway back. Geert Steegmans was really controlled in the final part. In these difficult conditions, it is easy to get carried away too soon, but today our timing was perfect."
In addition to making a clean, three-out-of-three sweep of the sprint stages thus far at the Giro d'Italia, Cavendish was pleased to notch his milestone 100th career victory.
"Normally, these records are not so meaningful, but this one is special," said Cavendish. "It isnâ??t easy to win 100 races. Iâ??ve been looking forward to this one. Itâ??s good to do it at the Giro, and itâ??s good to do it the way we did it, because my teammates rode out of their skin from the start of the stage to the finish. The guys were incredible, every single one of them, and that makes it even more special."
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