Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) took his tally of stage wins in this years Giro d'Italia to three when he outsprinted Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) on the 121km thirteenth stage.
Two men got away from the bunch almost immediately, and after 20km, had picked up just over three and a half minutes. Team Sky and FDJ-BigMat had control of the peloton, and on the fourth category climb to Motezemolo, after 31.7km, the two teams kept the pace nice and steady so as to not risk making their sprinters work too hard early in the stage. As the duo crested the climb the gap was 5:30.
As the kilometres rolled by the gap slowly came down, and with 50km left to race it had dropped to 2:30, over the next 10km Orica-GreenEDGE joined the front of the peloton, and brought the gap down to 1:04. That time fluctuated, but the two riders were eventually swallowed with 20km remaining, after sitting up and allowing themselves to be caught.
A lot of the teams started to make their presence be known at the front of the peloton, with Rabobank, Liquigas-Cannondale, and Katusha all sending riders up. It was Liquigas-Cannondale and Movistar that led the peloton into the finishing straight, and 5km left to race it was Garmin-Barracuda who were leading the bunch, with Movistar and Team Sky not far behind. Both Farnese Vini-Selle Italia and Saxo Bank made an attempt to take over, and Saxo Bank were successful until Team Sky regained control with 1.5km left to race.
Three Sky team mates led Cavendish, Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) and Roberto Ferrari (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) under the flamme rouge, but as the line drew closer the Orica-GreenEDGE train came past. Brett Lancaster (Orica-GreenEDGE) launched team mate Matt Goss into his sprint, and immediately Cavendish was on his wheel.
As he began to come around the former team mate, Cavendish found himself being pushed into the barriers, but Goss opened up a gap for him, and the Brit relaunched his sprint to take the stage by a bike length from Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Mark Renshaw (Rabobank).
With the peloton finishing immediately behind it's still Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) in pink, but with the race heading into the mountains this weekend, it's going to be a tough couple of days for the Spaniard before Monday's rest day.



