Forza Italia

Lombardi continues Italian success at Tour of Spain

SANTANDER, Spain (Reuters) -- Italian Giovanni Lombardi chalked up the Acqua and Sapone team's fourth stage win of this year's Tour of Spain when he crossed the line first in Santander on Friday.

Lombardi, usually the lead-out man for Mario Cipollini who won three stages in the first week before abandoning last Saturday, won the 189.8 kilometer stage from Burgos in four hours 11 minutes and 21 seconds.

The 33-year-old was a member of a 16-man day-long break which was reduced to six near the end. Davide Bramati and Paolo Bossoni came in next to clinch an Italian top three.

Italian riders have now won seven stages of this year's Vuelta, one more than the Spaniards, one of which, Oscar Sevilla, retained his overall lead.

"The sprint was actually the easiest part of the day's racing, what tired me out was working in the day-long break," Lombardi, who won a Tour of Spain stage in 1998, said.

"I have a lot of practice sprinting by working for Cipollini. I am also convinced that Mario would be winning more stages if he were still here."

Four of the half dozen riders who disputed the finish, Marco Velo, Lombardi, Bossoni and Piotr Caucchioli had attacked 10 kilometers previously only to be caught by Bramati and Spaniard Oscar Laguna in the final kilometer.

Lombardi was undeterred by those two new rivals, however, and managed to win the sprint by three bike lengths.

Like teammate Cipollini, Lombardi will abandon the Tour of Spain before the end to prepare for the World Championships in Zolder, Belgium.

The main peloton arrived eight minutes 21 seconds behind Lombardi, with race leader Sevilla safely among them.

"Riders complained that my team Kelme-Costa Blanca were going too fast behind once the chasing group had gone clear, but otherwise their lead was going to go up to 30 minutes and we couldn't have that," the Spaniard said.

Relatively calm

"It's been a relatively calm day overall thanks to the break being so big," he added.

A tailwind as the race headed towards the northern Spanish coast from Burgos kept the average speed high for the second day running, peaking at 50.4 kmh for the first hour.

The pace did not deter the 16 breakaways from building up a lead of nine minutes by the 90 kilometers mark.

On the first category Alto de la Sia, seven of the 16, three Spaniards Santiago Blanco, Oscar Pereiro and Laguna, Frenchman Mederic Clain, Belgium's Dave Bruylandts and Portugal's Rui Sousa and the Italian Caucchioli, managed to break away.

However, Caucchioli's refusal to collaborate caused the Spanish-dominated split to disintegrate, giving Lombardi his chance to continue Italy's run of victories.

 

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