Cycling:France's Jerome Pineau won the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia as Vincenzo Nibali retained the race leader's pink jersey today.
Pineau (QuickStep) was the victor on the 162-kilometres stage from Novara to Novi Ligure as a three-man breakaway held off the peloton until the finish after surging clear early on in the day.
France’s Julien Fouchard (Cofidis) was second and Japan’s Yukiya Arashiro (Bbox-Bouygues Telecom), while American Tyler Farrar (Team Garmin Transitions) led the peloton home in fourth, four seconds behind the breakaway riders, ahead of New Zealand’s Greg Henderson (Team Sky).
Italy’s Nibali (Liquigas), who took the maglia rosa with yesterday’s team time-trial win, remains 13 seconds clear of team-mate and compatriot Ivan Basso in the general classification standings.
Pineau, Fouchard and Arashiro broke away early on along with Paul Voss (Milram) and the peloton allowed the quartet to go clear.
Voss fell back to the main group with little more than 20km remaining after doing just enough to retain the mountains’ classification jersey, leaving the trio of Pineau, Fouchard and Arashiro to fight off the peloton’s late charge in the closing stages.
Arashiro was in contention for the first Japanese Grand Tour stage win and he went for glory inside the final 300metres, but Pineau responded to triumph.
It was QuickStep’s second win of the race after Wouter Weylandt won stage three last Sunday.
Ireland’s Daniel Martin came hope in 152nd spot in a group 55 seconds behind the winner and lies 91st on general classification.