Today was the 21st stage, the ultimo tappa thus of this Giro d'Italia 2013. A Giro with much less animation than some of those we've seen a few years ago but a Giro which was mostly impacted by the weather.

The last stage was, as often in a Grand Tour, without much interest, except of course to know the name of the winner of the last bunch sprint in the streets of Brescia and it was, not really surprisingly, the man whose nickname (well, at least in Italy) is the fastest man in the world, Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep).

The summary of the 21st stage of the Tour of Italy 2013: Riese Pio X > Brescia

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) came to the start completely dressed in pink this morning and his team mates of the Astana team all had pink handlebar tape. The riders went off in a real slow tempo for the last 197 kilometers of this Giro d'Italia 2013, the 96th edition of this Italian Grand Tour.

The goal of today for Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), in addition to the stage win, was to take back the red jersey of the points classification which Vincenzo Nibali "stole" from his yesterday with his stage win. The riders of the Omega Pharma-QuickStep team thus made sure that the few rares attacks in this stage never really got a chance to go off and as expected the Manx Missile took the points at the first intermediate sprint in Sirmione.

The next intermediate sprint was planned at the start of the 4th lap on the 4.2 kilometer long circuit in Brescia but apparently it was not clear during the stage when was the right moment and Mark Cavendish thus had to get in front of the peloton several times in order to make sure to get the points at that place.

For the last crossing of the finish line, the British rider launched the sprint from far, first followed by Elia Viviani (Cannondale Pro Cycling) and then threatened for the stage win by Sacha Modolo (Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox). This however mostly turned out to be the crushing effect of the image seen from the front because in the end, Mark Cavendish crossed the line while Modolo didn't even reach his back wheel.

Video summary

Here's the video summary of the 21st and final stage of the Giro d'Italia 2013:

The final classifications of the Giro d'Italia 2013

The classification of the 21st stage of the Tour of Italy 2013: Riese Pio X > Brescia

Here's the top 10 of this last stage of the Giro d'Italia 2013:

1/ Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - 5h30'09"
2/ Sacha Modolo (Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox)
3/ Elia Viviani (Cannondale Pro Cycling)
4/ Giacomo Nizzolo (Radioshack-Leopard)
5/ Luka Mezgec (Team Argos-Shimano)

General classification

No changes anymore in the general classification of course and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) will thus most probably regret the time he's lost in yesterday's stage and which made hip drop from the 2nd to the 3rd place. His team announced that this time loss was due to a technical problem he had in the last two kilometers of the race, that the Australian rider tried to repair the problem but that the severe weather and the nature of the problem prevented him from doing so. One could wonder whether that's good publicity for a team sponsored by a bike supplier ...

Here's the final top 5 of the general classification:

1/ Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) - 84h53'28"
2/ Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky) - +4'43"
3/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +5'52"
4/ Michele Scarponi (Lampre-Merida) - +6'48"
5/ Carlos Betancur (AG2R La Mondiale) - +7'28"

Points classification

Thanks to the points taken at the two intermediate sprints and with his stage victory, Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) finally takes back his red jersey of the points classification from Vincenzo Nibali (Astana):

1/ Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - 158 points
2/ Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) - 128 points
3/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 111 points
4/ Carlos Betancur (AG2R La Mondiale) - 108 points
5/ Giovanni Visconti (Movistar Team) - 105 points

King of the Mountains classification

Since there were no further points to be distributed in this last stage, without any climbs, the King of the Mountains classification didn't change anymore:

1/ Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiane Valvole-CSF Inox) - 82 points
2/ Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) - 45 points
3/ Giovanni Visconti (Movistar Team) - 45 points
4/ Jackson Rodriguez (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) - 41 points
5/ Carlos Betancur (AG2R La Mondiale) - 37 points

Young riders classification

Thanks to his good performance in the forelast stage, Carlos Betancur (AG2R La Mondiale) finally goes home with the white jersey of best young rider:

1/ Carlos Betancur (AG2R La Mondiale) - 85h00'56"
2/ Rafal Majka (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) - +0'41"
3/ Wilco Kelderman (Blanco Pro Cycling Team) - +12'50"
4/ Darwin Atapuma (Colombia) - +21'28"
5/ Diego Rosa (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) - +32'55"

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Giro d Italia | Giro d'Italia 2013

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