Giro d`Italia stage 5

After a rather low-key start to the Tour of Italy, Euskaltel today showed their worth on the complicated, crash-marred fifth stage to the beautiful little town of Orvieto. The gravel roads on the way to Orvieto broke the peloton into pieces, and to start with only Igor Antón was close to the favourites. Towards the end of the stage he was joined by Nieve and the impressive Isasi, meaning Euskaltel had a trio of riders in the small group of favourites going into the short, but oh so steep, climb to the finish line. Weening was by that time up ahead and looking strong. With a kilometre to go he held a 15- second lead on the rest, and just when it seemed that it was all done and dusted Nieve took off in pursuit of the flying Dutchman. It was an impressive burst of speed coming after such an arduous stage, but he didn`t manage to sustain his effort long enough and was caught by the pack within sight of the line. Together with team leader Antón he rolled home with the group of overall contenders just eight seconds down on the new Maglia Rosa. "I`m actually very pleased with the outcome of the stage", Nieve told the team`s website post-race. "It was a very difficult stage but we came through it really well. I`m a bit annoyed though, I have to admit, that I struggled somewhat on the first sector of gravel road. I was forced to dismount my bike a couple of times which resulted in me having to chase hard to get back on. I put in a couple of huge efforts which I had to pay for later, but hey, I guess everyone probably encountered a problem in one way or another today. Towards the end I was pretty finished, but I still found the resources to have a go. The biggest positive today is that we have been up there on a stage not particularly suited to our strengths. The whole team worked well and we`ve obtained a good result". Isasi yielded 50 seconds by stage`s end finishing 35th, which by all accounts is a great result for a sprinter. Azanza came home 5:06 down in 66th place, whilst Aramendía - who was active mid-way through - and Cazaux came in together at 10:40. JJ Oroz crashed quite badly and lost 14:42 as a consequence. Minguez also hit the deck and lost 21:54, but they`re both reported to be okay. Sesma ended up 18:49 in arrears.