Sardegna: Monkey Off His Back!

Damiano Cunego's last victory of any kind was September 13, 2009 at the Vuelta a Espana. Cunego had the worst year of his career in 2010 but already looks poised at a recovery based on his impressive win today in Sardinia.

Cunego attacked the peloton on the the final climb of Ortobene, and managed to escape along with some of the race leaders for a final showdown on the sprint. Cunego easily outsprinted the contending field (including yesterday's winner Peter Sagan) and grabbed himself the stage and the general classification lead.

Cunego is not a sprinter, but he does excel in short sprints that are slightly uphill. The "little prince" kicked at about 250 m out, and although Jose Serpa and Emanuele Sella tried to catch up, Cunego was already celebrating by the time they hit the line.

Sagan may not have been a contender in the bunch sprint, it was still an impressive 4th place finish for him and he held onto 2nd overall. This week will really be a test for his climbing abilities, but so far he looks off to a good start.

Ben Hermans of Radioshack had yet another solid performance in 5th, and Peter Sagan's leadout man Eros Capecchi finished 6th.

Those were all riders that were in the final lead group on the last climb. Most of the other major race contenders did not suffer too much damage, and many of them finished within a minute (which is do-able in this race).

Well, all except Vincenzo Nibali.
This is Nibali's first event of the year, and understandably he is still finding his form, but I wouldn't expect much from him on the leaderboard now as he lost almost 8 minutes on the road today.

I also wouldn't expect to see much defensive riding from Cunego. Now that he has some confidence back and he seems in pretty good form, he very well may try to take another stage. Scarponi did a fairly good job of working for him on the climb today, and if he continues to get support like that then he may very well keep the jersey throughout the week.

Stage Results

1. Damiano Cunego

2. Jose Serpa

3. Emanuele Sella

General Classification

1. Damiano Cunego

2. Peter Sagan -2

3. Jose Serpa -4

4. Emanuele Sella -8

5. Eros Capecchi -12

6. Ben Hermans -12

7. Michele Scarponi -18

11. Alessandro Ballan -34

19. Stefano Garzelli -55

21. Danilo Di Luca -56

61. Vincenzo Nibali -7:59