In this morning’s edition of the CyclingTips Daily News Digest: Contador takes over lead in Giro d’Italia as Polanc wins stage 5; Peter Sagan wins stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California, Skujins retains overall lead; Sam Bennett wins stage 1 of the Bayern Rundfahrt; Kirsten Wild wins Tour of Chongming opener; Contador into pink but remains cautious - “The race has just started…anything can happen”; 21-month ban for Matteo Rabottini; Getting to know Fabian Cancellara; Contador laughs off bike motor rumors spread by Cipollini; Geolocation for identifying cyclists?; Wiggle Honda at the Tour of Chongming Island (China); The Win Tunnel - Eyewear.

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Contador takes over lead in Giro d’Italia as Polanc wins stage 5

by Shane Stokes

Alberto Contador broke the Orica-GreenEdge monopoly of the pink jersey on stage five of the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday, being aggressive on the final climb and gaining enough time to become race leader.

Young Slovenian rider Jan Polanc put in an impressive ride from an escape move to win the race’s first summit finish, with breakaway companion Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling) just holding on for second. Fabio Aru (Astana) beat Contador and Richie Porte (Sky) in the sprint for third, netting a four-second time bonus.

Polanc and Chavanel had been part of a five-reader lead group that got clear after 16km of racing, building a lead that peaked at more than 11 minutes. At the base of the final climb, 17km from the finish, the leaders were 6:23 ahead of the group of maglia rosa Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge) and a catch appeared likely.

But an attack from Polanc with 10.7km to the line distanced the rapidly disintegrating lead group, the 23-year-old Slovenian holding on to win by 1:31.

The 2015 Giro d’Italia continues today with a rare stage for the sprinters. Despite some climbing in the second half of the race, stage 6 will almost certainly be decided by a bunch kick.

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

Peter Sagan wins stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California, Skujins retains overall lead

Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) has taken his second victory of the season, winning stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California after three consecutive second-place finishes in the opening days of the race. Drapac’s Wouter Wippert was second across the line after the uphill sprint, ahead of Mark Cavendish (Etixx-Quick-Step).

#AmgenTOC10th That was number 12 for Sagan in TOC. pic.twitter.com/9Vd7R5jvRI

— Procyclingnews.eu (@Procyclingeu) May 13, 2015

A five-rider escape group lead for much of the race with Will Clarke (Drapac), Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthcare), Jesse Anthony (Optum), and Gregory Daniel (Axeon Cycling) and Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN-Qhubeka) getting a few minutes clear on the 173km stage. The last of those riders, Gregory Daniel, was caught with 15.3km to go, setting things up for a bunch kick.

Daniel Oss (BMC) broke clear of the peloton with just over a kilometre to go but was unable to hold on as the road tilted upwards for the final drag to the line.

Toms Skujins (Hincapie Development Team) retains his overall lead in the race ahead of tomorrow’s fifth stage of the eight-stage race. The riders will cover 154km from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita with four categorised climbs along the way.

Sam Bennett wins stage 1 of the Bayern Rundfahrt

Irish sprinter Sam Bennett (Bora-Argon 18) has won the opening stage of the Bayern Rundfahrt in Waldsassen after outsprinting Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and John Degenkolb (Giant Alpecin).

. @Sammmy_Be wins opening stage at @bayernrundfahrt + will start in yellow tomorrow! Report: http://t.co/b2rnIzmeDJ pic.twitter.com/7Q3Rwq6wdm

— BORA – ARGON 18 (@BoraArgon18) May 13, 2015

The early running was made by a six-rider breakaway that led for most of the stage: Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), John Weber (Stuttgart), Louis Meintjes (MTN-Qhubeka), Rodolfo Andres Torres (Colombia), Benjamin Edmüller (Heizomat) and Jonas Koch (Rad-net Rose). The six leaders had built an advantage that peaked at roughly five minutes before the likes of Giant-Alpecin and Cannondale-Garmin started to reel the escapees in.

The last of the breakaway riders were caught with 20km to race, setting things up for a sprint finish.

Bennett will wear the leader’s jersey into stage 2 of the five-stage, 2.HC race, a 179.5km jaunt from Waldsassen to Selb with a couple climbs along the way.

Click here to read more at Wielerflits.nl.

Kirsten Wild wins Tour of Chongming opener

by Jessi Braverman

Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products) outsprinted Shelley Olds (Bigla) and Giorgi Bronzini (Wiggle Honda) to win the opening stage of the Tour of Chongming Island on Wednesday.

The three-day Chinese tour serves as an appetiser of sorts to the Tour of Chongming World Cup on Sunday. Featuring similar terrain to the roads used in the one-day race — which is to say flat, fast, wide and straight — the stage race is normally dominated by Sunday’s contenders. Wild won the overall last year and signalled her hopes of a repeat win with her stage victory.

The straightforward stage ended in the expected field sprint; however, it was a smaller group than anticipated that powered to the line. High speeds in the final hour of racing saw around 20 riders lose contact with the main bunch. All of the pre-race favourites made the front split.

In a race that is often decided by bonus seconds, the two intermediate sprints were nearly as hotly contested as the final. Olds won the first bonus sprint from Wild and Roxane Fournier (Poitou-Charentes.Futuroscope.86). Wild won the second sprint ahead of Bronzini and Annalisa Cucinotta (Alé Cipollini).

Wild will start stage two in the yellow leader’s jersey. Olds sits second overall, six seconds behind the race leader. Bronzini is a further nine seconds adrift.

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

Contador into pink but remains cautious: “The race has just started…anything can happen”

by Shane Stokes

He’s never given up a race leader’s jersey after taking it in a Grand Tour, but then again he’s never taken one so early. Just five days into the Giro d’Italia, Alberto Contador seized control and took the pressure of wearing pink onto his shoulders on Wednesday with a strong ride on the race’s first summit finish.

“I didn’t think I’d have the pink jersey so early in the race, as the main objective is to wear it in Milan at the final stage of the Giro,” said Contador. “This is just a taste of what is to come, as the race is just getting started.

“I took the decision to attack on the final climb to test my rivals,” he explained. “I didn’t feel super, but the result and outcome was positive and by the end of the climb I felt as if I had good legs.

“Of course I’m really happy to be in the pink jersey because everybody knows how much I like the Giro d’Italia and how big an experience this jersey is…also for me. We might not try too hard to keep it, for now, but it will be up to the others to take it away from me.”

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

21-month ban for Matteo Rabottini

Matteo Rabottini, who rode for the Neri Sottoli squad in 2014, has been handed a 21-month suspension by the UCI after testing positive for EPO late last year.

Rabottini returned a positive test in an out-of-competition control on August 7 last year and was provisionally suspended on September 12. The Italian reportedly avoided a full, two-year ban as a result of cooperating with anti-doping authorities.

Click here to read more via AFP/VeloNews.

Getting to know Fabian Cancellara

Here’s an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the life of Fabian Cancellara, as captured by photographer Emily Maye and Trek Factory Racing press officer Tim Vanderjeugd. In it, Maye and Vanderjeugd spend some time with Cancellara in his home town of Bern with Spartacus still in recovery after breaking two vertebrae in a crash at E3 Harelbeke.

There are some nice photos in the piece and a great insight into the man that has been such a force in world cycling over the past decade. Here’s an excerpt:

“

Taylor Swift is playing through the speakers of [Fabian’s] black BMW X6 M-series with a black leather dashboard and red stitching. In a blink of an eye we arrive in Ittigen, an affluent suburb of Bern. “I like that Bern is not too small and not too big. You can get around very easily.”

…

We drive under a pedestrian bridge that was named after Fabian when he won his first of two double Flanders-Roubaix victories in 2010. “It is a real honor that the town counsel did this for me,” he beams. “It’s also nice because I wasn’t raised in Ittigen. Maybe I’m the only bike rider in the whole WorldTour that has a bridge with his name! But all jokes aside, it’s not like they built the bridge for me. It was anonymous before they named it after me.”

Click here to read more at the Trek Factory Racing website.

Contador laughs off bike motor rumors spread by Cipollini

Alberto Contador has laughed off suggestions from former sprinter Mario Cipollini that changing bikes mid-stage is “bad for the image of cycling, because people think there’s a motor [in the bike].”

Contador responded:

“There are a lot of reasons to change a bike. Like tubulars, which [may] not be able to be raced for 200km, but they can last for 30km or 40km,” he said, before adding, jokingly. “My bikes don’t have one motor. They have five. And this talk of motors? That’s a joke, that’s something from science fiction.”

“I think it’s wrong to say that bike changes are not good for the sport,” Contador said. “It’s the contrary, it should be viewed as a good thing, that we use different materials and bikes for different situations.”

Click here to read more at VeloNews.

Geolocation for identifying cyclists?

The Inner Ring has put together an interesting article looking at the possible introduction of geolocation technology to road cycling, the idea being to more easily and more quickly identify riders in a breakaway or other group on the road.

Here’s an excerpt:

“

Being able to identify where riders are is fundamentally important for TV. It’s 2015 and when a breakaway goes live on TV you feel for the commentators who have to try and ID the riders.

For starters the frame-mounted bike numbers and the dorsal numbers pinned to a rider often aren’t legible on TV. The frame numbers are too small to spot while the moto cameras tend to film from the side. So commentators try to identify the riders by sight, not easy with helmets and sunglasses.

Take Stage 4 in the Giro, it took 20 minutes to identify all the riders up the road and the moment the list of riders was communicated the group had fragmented. Similar confusion arises at other crucial points, for example knowing who has made the cut over climb.

Click here to read more at The Inner Ring.

Wiggle Honda at the Tour of Chongming Island (China)

Here’s a cool little video from the team at Wiggle Honda, featuring an interview with Nettie Edmondson, a peek inside a team meeting and a look at the unique features of Chinese racing.

The Win Tunnel - Eyewear

In this episode of the Win Tunnel series, Chris and Cameron from Specialized put sunglasses to the test to see what’s faster — sport glasses or casual sunglasses.

What You Missed

And finally this morning, here are a few things you might have missed at CyclingTips:

• Lapierre Aircode 700 review
• Oakley Jawbreaker review
• Schumacher: For sure I would like to be in the Giro, but I have to move on
• Giro d’Italia photo gallery: stages 1-3
• Daily News Digest: Wednesday May 13

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