News Letter

David Olle in Italy, +39 333 5959 217

For those in Australia, SBS does a daily report on the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) called by Matt Keenan in the evenings, catch them if you can.

Giro d'Italia, May 8 - 30, 2010, Report Stage 5, Thursday, May 13, 168 km

Novara → Novi Ligure

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Don't we all just love a sprinter's stage where the break is away all day, and achieves success in front of the panting peloton, by just 4 seconds? And in the first week of a grand tour, too.

Results

1 Jerome Pineau (Fra) Quick Step

2 Julien Fouchard (Fra) Cofidis

3 Yukiya Arashiro (Jpn) Bbox Bouygues Telecom

NB: Japan cracked the podium today, not sure if this is the first time ever, but I bet he's happy.

General classification

Nibali still in pink, Italians fill the top three placings.

Skippy report: Matthew Harley GOSS is current top placed non-italian. Looking for Cadel, you have to go down the GC (General Classification) past another 4 skip-riders to find him, Richie Porte (Aus) Team Saxo Bank, Baden Cooke (Aus) Team Saxo Bank, Graeme Brown (Aus) Rabobank and Adam Hansen (Aus) Team HTC - Columbia, but who's counting? There's no point yet, wait ‘til we get to the hills.

Media report: Hey, who would have guessed it? Nibali in Pink, front page photo, La Gazetta dello Sport!

Cuisine report: We arrived in Casalserugo yesterday, where we are staying in a colleagues house. His parents made us right at home, serving us ‘Zuppa di Zucca' (pumpkin soup) within 3/10 of a second of arrival. Ivo very proudly extolling that he scored 100 kg with just 14 pumpkins last season (an excellent PB, we agree).

2 photos here:Restday interview with Colombia HTC's Marco Pinotti http://twitpic.com/1nfsv1
What I couldn't resist on the way to the TTT, http://twitpic.com/1nfwz7

Tomorrow: Stage 6 Friday, May 14, 166 km

Fidenza → Carrara

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The Bike Race:

Three stages kick start the race in Holland, before they transfer to Savigliano in Italy's north west Piedmonte region. From here the race heads further south, through Tuscany, across to Abruzzo before returning to the Dolomites in the north-east and the event's Grand Finale in Verona. 198 riders (14 from Australia) complete 21 stages over 3 weeks, visiting 2 countries en route, with just 2 rest days. 3,416 kilomtres, running May 8 - 30.

The Writer:
David Olle's cycling reports are used by ABC radio's 774 DRIVE show in Melbourne, ABC radio 702 breakfast show in Sydney, ABC national overnights and 3RRR FM's Breakfasters. He chats regularly with all. He also created and produces the magazine style TV show ‘Topbike TV' which is seen throughout Australia and New Zealand on community televison. The reports are also published here, www.cyclesportnews.com, along with any photos.

These reports are independent, opinionated, Australian biased, and could miss a day here and there, along with containing the odd error.

We aim to send these reports daily, while any worthy bike race is on. You have the power to control your interest in these reports, see details below.

We also run good bike tours.

David Olle

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