Today’s stage rolled out at 12:35 local time with the news that CSC team members Bradley McGee and Stuart O’Grady would not be starting the race today. There was also talk of a strike as the riders were quite frustrated with both yesterday’s course conditions as well as the late transfer from Sicily to the mainland. The delayed transfer resulted in many of the riders getting late dinners & massages as well as being late to bed.

The day was fairly uneventful as Belgian Rik Verbrugghe of the Cofidis team made an early attack and stayed out front until 20km from the end of the race. Verbrugghe is no stranger to the Giro. He won the prologue in 2001 and spent four days in the maglia rosa. He also won Stage 7 just two years ago.

Everyone was cruising along at about 34 km/hr for most of the race today. Verbrugghe enjoyed as much as an 11 minute lead today, but he had to battle winds that would have been somewhat sheltered by the peloton. At 30km from the finish, the peloton started to pour on the gas and the pace racheted up to 69 km/hr. Verbrugghe’s gap quickly droppped to 6:13, then to 3:55 until he was caught.

LPR quickly moved a small group to the front of the peloton. Di Luca wanted the pace to come down a bit, but an attack by Paolo Bettini and about 7 or 8 others assured that that would not happen. With 10 km to go, the attack was shut down. You would have expected LPR to continue pushing, but it was High Road and Lampre trading the lead into Catanzaro-Lungomare. With just 1 km to go, Milram pushed to the front in an effort to position Erik Zabel for the sprint, but it came down to Mark Cavendish (High Road) and Robert Förster (Gerolsteiner), who finished first and second. 

The leaders were safely ahead of a crash in the final meters that saw two CSF Group Navigare riders go down along with Belgian Nick Nuyens of Cofidis. Nuyens was taken away in an ambulance, so we probably will not see him tomorrow.

Franco Pellizotti continues to wear the maglia rosa, with Vandevelde and Di Luca breathing down his neck.

• Danilo di Luca is only 7 seconds off of the lead.
• Andreas Kloden - 28 seconds back
• Alberto Contador - 30 seconds
• Levi Leipheimer - 40 seconds
• Leonardo Piepoli - 1 minute, 1 second
• Gilberto Simoni - 1 minute, 2 seconds