the 219-kilometre trek from Caldes culminating

• PASSO DELLO STELVIO, Italy -- Joaquin Rodriguez increased his lead over Ryder Hesjedal at the Giro dItalia, but he still thinks the Canadian is the favourite to win the race. Jonathan Toews White Jersey . Thomas De Gendt won the gruelling penultimate stage of the Giro dItalia on Saturday while Rodriguez increased his overall lead over Victorias Hesjedal from 17 to 31 seconds. However, the last stage in Milan is a 30-kilometre individual time trial. Hesjedal is known to be extremely strong in those type of races. "Im happy with todays performance," Rodriguez said. "I managed to gain some precious seconds over Hesjedal but I think hes still the favourite, because 31 seconds is not such a great gap and hes better than me in races against the clock. I need a miracle! Still, anything can happen, especially after two such difficult stages, where both Hesjedal and I spent a lot of energy. Thats the reason why I believe I still have a chance. "For sure Ill do my best in order to make this dream come true, also because I think I have no other rivals: The others are quite far behind. De Gendt put on a great performance today and hes an ITT specialist, but hes 2:18 behind, which should be enough." With a superb climb on the Passo dello Stelvio, De Gendt finished the so-called queen stage of the Giro in six hours 54 minutes, 41 seconds. He finished 56 seconds ahead of Damiano Cunego, with third-placed Mikel Nieve 2:50 behind. De Gendt, who started the day five minutes, 40 seconds behind Rodriguez in the overall standings, closed the gap to 2:18 and was in fourth place. The Belgian was briefly just 10 seconds off the pink jersey but Rodriguez managed to make up 1:30 in the final kilometre. "I thought that if the favourites didnt start chasing soon, the pink jersey was a possibility as well as the stage," De Gendt said. "But I knew the other favourites would go full gas in the last four kilometres and eat into the margin I had built up. I dont think I can win the Giro now, with this gap. But maybe I can get to the podium, if I recover well enough from todays effort. "I didnt expect to win, I went away on the Mortirolo because I just thought it was better to get some time on the favourites before the Stelvio. Then Nieve started going really fast and was giving everything so we extended our gap to over three minutes. On the Stelvio, I felt really good, also thanks to the training Ive done on climbs, and I went for it. The last few kilometres were very hard, I was dying!" Saturdays stage was the toughest of this years edition, with the 219-kilometre trek from Caldes culminating in a

  Send Message Reply Permalink

  Posted 2013-03-26
  summer 3

  Corporal

  

If you were logged in you would gain 3 XP for posting a reply.