Stage 6

The road

At the start

Two years since Weylandt

Nothing moved yesterday and little is likely to move today: five hundred and seventy metres of climbing in a hundred and seventy kilometres, then two laps of a circuit on the Adriatic. Paolini still leads, Urán and Intxausti within half a minute, Nibali and Wiggins inside thirty-five seconds. It is two years to the day since Wouter Weylandt died at this race.

How it was won

1. 125 km to go

   Wiggins caught behind, and dragged back

   On the first of two laps of the finishing circuit a crash splits the race and Bradley Wiggins is on the wrong side of it, a minute adrift. Sky bury themselves and haul him back in barely ten kilometres — and after that he rides the whole finale on or near the front, taking no chances whatsoever.

2. 2At the line

   Cavendish, for Weylandt

   Degenkolb opens too early and is swamped. At two hundred and fifty metres Gert Steegmans surges to the front with Cavendish on his wheel, and the Manxman is never in danger. He dedicates it, immediately, to Wouter Weylandt, who died at this race two years ago today.

The result