Stage 12

The road

At the start

The last sprint of this Giro

Contador still leads Siutsou by 59 seconds, with Nibali third at 1:21 and Scarponi fifth at 1:28. Today is 187 kilometres to Ravenna over the flattest ground the race will see all month — 469 metres of climbing in a whole day. Several of the sprinters have said out loud that this is where their Giro ends, because tomorrow it goes to Austria and does not come back down for a week.

How it was won

1. 12 km to go

   The corner at 1.6 kilometres

   An Androni rider misjudges a tight left-hander near the front and takes half the field into the barriers behind him. Contador is in the middle of it and comes out untouched; HTC's lead-out, somehow, is not even interrupted.

2. 2At the line

   Ravenna

   HTC-Highroad have driven this stage since its twentieth kilometre and they finish it the same way. Cavendish holds off Davide Appollonio by three-quarters of a wheel with Petacchi beaten into third: his second win in three days, and the last sprint this Giro will offer.

The result