Translated material
Border Pass
In France, Danilo Di Luca returned the pink jersey of the Giro leader
Following the results of the 12th stage of the prestigious stage race “Giro”, the rider of the Russian-Italian team “Tinkoff. Credit systems" Evgeniy Petrov lost his place in the top five of the general classification. Having shown the best time on the route with two mountain awards of the highest category, Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas) regained the pink jersey of the overall leader, which he owned for three days in the first week of the race on the roads of the Apennine Peninsula.On Thursday, the peloton had to storm the most serious peak of the Giro at 2,744 meters above sea level. The cyclists named it Cima Coppi in honor of the legendary Fausto Coppi, a five-time winner of this competition in the 1940s and early 1950s. The geographical name indicated on the maps is Colle del Agnello. The pass is located on the border between Italy and France.
Before entering the territory of their country, the little-known Frenchmen Riblon and La Boulanger showed extraordinary agility. At about the 15 km mark they suddenly sped off and continued to actively pedal until the start of a long climb. The advantage of the fugitives grew by leaps and bounds - five minutes, ten, fifteen. The gap reached a record 17 minutes for the current Giro. 15 sec. During the assault on Cima Coppi, Riblon was the first to save. He lost contact with his partner in this escape and was lost in the depths of the peloton long before the finish. La Boulanger, having won the most prestigious mountain award, already while climbing the next peak, somehow managed to catch up with the company of masters of the Italian stage race that had caught up with him, which included three Giro winners of different years. These were Damiano Cunego and the experienced Stefano Garzelli and Gilberto Simoni. Along with everyone else, the champion of the debut Pro Tour series in 2005, Danilo Di Luca, worked here.
On the descent from Colle del Agnello, the riders began to put on the windbreakers they had stored. Instead of plus 30 Celsius at the beginning of the distance, the mountain greeted the participants with negative temperatures, and the road surface was framed by snowdrifts that would probably melt only by mid-June.
When the climb began to the second mountain of the route, Petrov stayed in the second pursuit group shoulder to shoulder with his neighbors at the top of the general classification. Evgeny still did not have enough strength to hold on to the leading positions in the race for the second day in a row. He gradually began to decline, without real support from his teammates, and finished only 15th. The victory at the stage was played out between Di Luca, who retained more freshness for the decisive breakthrough in Briançon, France, and Simoni, who could not keep up with the pace set by his young opponent. Petrov fell back to ninth place in the overall standings and is still on schedule for completing the minimum task set for the Tinkoff drivers - getting into the top 10 of the team's strongest member or winning at least one stage. Now his gap from the leader is 2 minutes. 48 sec.