After the rest day, the riders of the Giro d'Italia 2010 found each other again this afternoon in Savigliano in the north of Italy for a team time trial stage towards Cuneo.

In this joint effort, the 9 guys of the Liquigas-Doimo team were the fastest by finishing the 33 kilometers in 36'37", 13 seconds less than Team Sky. Vincenzo Nibali, the best placed rider of the Italian team, thus takes over the pink jersey from Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and two of his team mates complete the top 3 of the general classification.

A resume of the team time trial Savigliano > Cuneo

Today's stage was the 18th team time trial in the history of the Giro d'Italia (1937, 1954-1956, 1981-1989 et 2006-2010).

The first team to start was Cofidis at 2.50PM while the Astana team started last at 4.35PM, each team starting with a 5 minute interval. The teams which were seen as today's big favourites were Team Sky with Bradley Wiggins and Garmin-Transitions with David Millar.

The stage took place in varying weather conditions and some of the teams rode part of the race or the whole race in the rain. One of the teams which was most influenced by the rain was Team Sky which got an additional delay because of a flat tyre for Chris Sutton. At the intermediate time point, the British team realised the best time, ahead of Team Katusha with 4 seconds and Omega Pharma-Lotto with 28 seconds (30 seconds ahead of Liquigas-Doimo which realised the 5th best time there) and it was thus maybe because of the rain that the favourite team only finished second in this stage.

At the finish the Liquigas-Doimo team realised the best time, 36'37" for an average speed of 54,073 km/h. Team Sky finished 2nd at 13 seconds and Garmin-Transitions at a deceiving 8th place at 49 seconds. The team of the pink jersey rider after the third stage in The Netherlands, the Astana team of Alexandre Vinokourov, finished 5th at 38 seconds.
The biggest gap with the Liquigas-Doimo team was the one for the French team AG2R La Mondiale which lost 2'50" in this time trial.

Video images of the Savigliano > Cuneo stage

> Click here to see a resume of the team time trial stage Savigliano > Cuneo of the Giro d'Italia 2010

> Click here to see the video with Liquigas-Doimo's victory and the badly organised race finish for the Astana team

The classifications

The stage classification for Savigliano > Cuneo

Below you can find the complete stage classification for this 4th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2010:
1/ Liquigas-Doimo - 36'37"
2/ Team Sky - +0'13"
3/ HTC-Columbia - +0'21"
4/ Team Katusha - +0'27"
5/ Astana - +0'38"
6/ Cervélo TestTeam - +0'38"
7/ Omega Pharma-Lotto - +0'46"
8/ Garmin-Transitions - +0'49"
9/ Team Saxo Bank - +0'50"
10/ Team Milram - +0'57"
11/ Rabobank - +1'04"
12/ BMC Racing Team - +1'21"
13/ Lampre-Farnese Vini - +1'43"
14/ Footon-Servetto - +2'03"
15/ Colnago - CSF Inox - +2'08"
16/ Quick Step - +2'15"
17/ Bbox Bouygues Telecom - +2'19"
18/ Caisse d'Epargne - +2'21"
19/ Androni Giocattoli - Diquigiovanni - +2'24"
20/ Cofidis - +2'29"
21/ Acqua & Sapone - +2'39"
22/ AG2R La Mondiale - +2'50"

General classification

As expected, this stage had led to some important movements in the general classification. Since the riders of each team are credited with the time they realised as a team in this stage and the time gaps between the teams are thus applied to the riders of the same team, several riders of the same teams are now close together in the general classification. Especially at the top of this classification with 3 riders from Liquigas followed by 2 HTC-Columbia riders.

The top 10 of the general classification stays together with a maximum time gap under one minute:
1/ Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) - 10h44'00"
2/ Ivan Basso (Liquigas) - +0'13"
3/ Valerio Agnoli (Liquigas) - +0'20"
4/ Matthew Goss (HTC-Columbia) - +0'26"
5/ André Greipel (HTC-Columbia) - +0'26"
6/ Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) - +0'33"
7/ Vladimir Karpets (Katusha Team) - +0'39"
8/ Richie Porte (Team Saxo Bank) - +0'45"
9/ David Millar (Garmin-Transitions) - +0'45"
10/ Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) - +0'59"

Ivan Basso is now thus in 2nd position at 13 seconds behind his team mate, while Alexandre Vinokourov goes down to the 6th place at 33 seconds. For the other favourites we have to look a bit further in the general classification with for example Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) at the 27th place at 1'59" and Carlos Sastre (Cervélo TestTeam) at the 32nd place at 2'13"

Best young rider classification

In the best young rider classification, Valerio Agnoli (Liquigas-Doimo) now takes the lead, followed by Matthew Goss (HTC-Columbia), thus pushing Richie Porte, the neo-pro in Team Saxo Bank, to the 3rd position:

1/ Valerio Agnoli (Liquigas-Doimo) - 10h44'20"
2/ Matthew Goss (HTC-Columbia) - +0'06"
3/ Richie Porte (Team Saxo Bank) - +0'25"
4/ Robert Kiserlovski (Liquigas-Doimo) - +1'04"
5/ Michael Morkov (Team Saxo Bank) - +1'21"

The other classifications remain unchanged

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Giro d Italia | Giro d'Italia 2010

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