Giro d'Italia: The Italian Marco Canola (Bardiani-CSF) won the 13th stage out of a three-man lead group and thus successfully kept the sprinters at a distance. Hardly anyone would have expected that before the stage, after all the profile was made for another festival of fast men.
The 157-kilometer stage from Fossano to Rivarolo Canavese saw the formation of a group early on, from which Italian Canola attacked on the finish lap together with Jackson Rodriguez (Androni Giocattoli) and Angelo Tulik (Europcar). Canola was clearly the strongest. He tried several times to shake off his competitors, but when he didn't succeed, he drove the last 250 meters from the front and won in front of Rodriguez and Tulik. The trio was not impressed by a hailstorm that caught the region around the destination a few minutes before the drivers arrived.
Frenchman Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr), who leads the ranking of the best sprinter, won the sprint of the field eleven seconds later. As it turned out, the other teams in the French team had helped with the tracking work too late.
FDJ.fr had previously increased the pace in the field for a long time and kept the breakaways on a short leash with just under three minutes. When no other team could be found with almost twenty kilometers to go to close the gap, Bouhanni's teammates put their feet up. Only the initiative by Garmin-Sharp showed success. Too late, as it turned out.
The crooked approach to the finish also played into the cards of the escapees. This corresponded more to the final of a mountain stage, but seemed rather daring for a sprint finish.
There were no changes in the overall rating. Here the Colombian Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) was able to defend the lead he took yesterday.