Brambilla rode into the win­ning break­away, but couldn’t quite match the pace on the day’s main hur­dle at the second-category climb. He con­tin­ued to fight all the way to the line and earned an impres­sive fourth on the hard-fought stage.

“I’ve been in four break­away attempts in this Giro. We are always attack­ing and try­ing to win a stage,” Brambilla said. “Perhaps the fatigue of nearly three weeks of rac­ing is catch­ing up with me. I was hop­ing to catch back on dur­ing the descent, but it was very tech­ni­cal and I wasn’t able to con­test for the stage.”

Colnago-CSF-Inox has been active through­out the Giro with break­away attempts and vows to keep fight­ing all the way to Milano, where the Giro ends Sunday.

Another rider who’s been at the sharp end of the action has been Stefano Pirazzi.

“It’s been very dif­fi­cult to try to win a stage this year because the GC fight was not set­tled until the climb­ing time trial at Nevegal. That meant that the breaks were almost always caught because the big favorites were still rac­ing for time bonuses and to attack,” Pirazzi said. “There are still a few stages left to go. We will keep attack­ing and try to leave this Giro with a stage victory.”

Brambilla latched onto the day’s main break­away on the road to Europe’s steep­est road and only got caught mid­way up the pun­ish­ingly steep road fea­tur­ing ramps as steep as 22 percent.

“It was a great day to be in the break­away, even though I was suf­fer­ing like a dog. I knew we needed more time to have a chance to win the stage, but the pelo­ton wouldn’t let us get away,” Brambilla said before the start of Sunday’s stage. “Then when we heard that the penul­ti­mate climb was taken out, it gave us more hope. We knew it would be dif­fi­cult with the favorites were com­ing behind us.”

Brambilla started Sunday’s even more chal­leng­ing 15th stage wear­ing the best climber’s green jer­sey. He started the stage ranked sec­ond behind Alberto Contador in the King of the Mountains clas­si­fi­ca­tion, but because Contador also holds the race leader’s pink jer­sey, Brambilla got to wear the green jer­sey in the marathon, eight-hour stage.

“The green jer­sey would be nice to win, but I have to be real­is­tic,” Brambilla admit­ted. “With Contador still rid­ing to win the Giro, he will keep earn­ing more points. The cir­cum­stances are not really in my favor.”

Brambilla vows to try his luck again in the Giro’s final week.

“The team really wants to win a stage in this Giro,” he said. “We’ve been on the attack almost every day. We hope to have the legs to keep on try­ing in the final week. I hope to recover from the hard effort. This Giro is very hard, so it’s not easy to win.”

Manuel Belletti was dis­rupted by a crash in the clos­ing kilo­me­ters into Ravenna and couldn’t make his sprint and came across the line seventh.

“The crash dis­rupted my sprint. It was too bad, because I was in good posi­tion,” said Belletti, who was third in stage 2. “By the time I could regain my posi­tion, it was too late. This was the last chance for the sprinters.”

Despite falling short of a vic­tory in the first half of rac­ing, the team remains opti­mistic with still two weeks of rac­ing left to go in the 2011 Giro

Riders have been work­ing into break­aways and light­ing up the roads with attacks. Stefano Pirazzi and Simone Stortoni have both been at the sharp end of the action in the open­ing days of the Giro.

“We’ve been attack­ing just about every day. The team is moti­vated and we’re look­ing for our oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Pirazzi said. “The pelo­ton is con­trol­ling the stages and not let­ting break­aways to stay away. We will keep try­ing in the sec­ond half of this Giro. We are moti­vated to win a stage, so we will keep our eyes on any openings.”

Domenico Pozzovivo has set­tled into 25th over­all at 6:04 going into the deci­sive final bat­tle­ground in the Dolomiti.

“I think the sec­ond half of the Giro will suit us bet­ter. There will be chances for break­aways to stay clear,” Pozzovivo said. “I hope to try to win a stage and climb higher in the GC. I still believe a top-10 is possible.”

Bertogliati’s pres­ence kept pres­sure off the team and Team Type 1 leader Aleksandr Efimkin rode into the lead group of 40 going into the final sum­mit climb. At the base of the final climb, Efimkin suf­fered from dehy­dra­tion because he was unable to take water from the team car with less than 20km to go.

“Today’s stage did not go as planned. RadioShack obvi­ously came to win, and they drove the pace so hard up Mt. Hamilton that we were caught out. Aleks asked for a bot­tle with 7km to go, and the com­mis­saire told me I could no longer feed,” said gen­eral man­ager Vassili Davidenko. “When you are rac­ing for the gen­eral clas­si­fi­ca­tion and you vio­late the rules, the penal­ties can be both finan­cial and as addi­tional time. I take respon­si­bil­ity for fol­low­ing the rules, which did not ben­e­fit the rider, so tomor­row we will try to dig back some time we lost.”

Efimkin, who won the Tour of Turkey before head­ing to California, crossed the line 28th at 4:10 back.

The French national cham­pion won Saturday’s deci­sive stage and fin­ished safely with the leader’s to wrap up the over­all title at the Dunkirk race, one of the most pres­ti­gious mid-sized races in France.

“Thomas appears to be stronger than ever. His team­mates pro­tected him from the wind, just like they did in the first three days. After his stage vic­tory on Saturday and the over­all, Thomas is reach­ing a new level,” said Europcar sport direc­tor Ismael Mottier. “The rest of the team is in great con­di­tion and we are sure to be at our peak with the season’s most impor­tant goals still ahead of us.”

The vic­tory was the eighth for Voeckler on the year in what’s turn­ing out to be one of his most suc­cess­ful in his career.

Manuel Belletti darted to third in the sprint fin­ish in the 244km sec­ond stage from Alba to Parma in a solid first week­end of rac­ing for the Colnago-CSF Inox team.

“It was a hard sprint, slightly ris­ing with some head­wind. It was a real fight to find the right wheel and when I found some space I was able to move up,” Belletti said after the stage. “I didn’t win, but it gives morale for the com­ing days. We are here to ani­mate the race and to try to win at least one stage. There are many good sprint­ers here at this Giro, but today con­firms we’re on the right track.”

Sunday’s sprint capped a strong open­ing week­end for Colnago-CSF Inox in the 94th edi­tion of the Giro d’Italia. The team was among 23 start­ing squads for the 2011 Giro and posted a ride of 19th in the team time trial at just 1:02 behind spe­cial­ists HTC-Highroad.

Belletti, who won a stage in last year’s Giro, will be look­ing to make his pres­ence felt in the open­ing sprints and break­aways of the first week of the Giro.

Domenico Pozzovivo will be man to carry the col­ors in the GC bat­tle while Manuel Belletti and Sacha Modolo will try their luck in the bunch sprint. In between, there will be plenty of road for the rest of the team to go on the attack and ride into break­aways in a bid to win a stage or grab the pink jersey.

“It’s a solid and tight-knit team. We final­ized our selec­tion after study­ing the results and fit­ness of the rid­ers in the past two races. We believe strongly in this group,” said team man­ager Roberto Reverberi. “Pozzovivo is in excel­lent form and can count on the sup­port of the team. With Modolo and Belletti, we can be right in the heat of the bat­tle for the sprints. The oth­ers will have their chances in break­aways. We are ready give our fans and spon­sors strong emotions.”

Pozzovivo, ninth in the 2008 Giro d’Italia, will be look­ing to climb as high as pos­si­ble in the over­all stand­ings. A bru­tal final week across the Dolomites suits his style per­fectly. He recently checked out some of the key climb­ing stages and liked what he saw.

“We exam­ined all the big stages and we know this Giro will be very dif­fi­cult. There will not be any cease-fires. It’s going to be a bat­tle every day,” Reverberi said. “There are many climbs suited for Pozzovivo, so we do not want to get dis­tracted. It will be a great Giro.”

Colnago-CSF Inox for Giro d’Italia
Domenico Pozzovivo
Manuel Belletti
Sacha Modolo
Gianluca Brambilla
Federico Canutti
Filippo Savini
Simone Stortoni
Marco Frapporti
Stefano Pirazzi

Efimkin clinched the over­all title after fin­ish­ing safely in the pack Sunday in what’s the biggest win in team his­tory for Team Type 1 – sanofi-aventis.

The Russian nearly won in stage 5 and woke up the next morn­ing intent on try­ing again. When he saw the race lead­ers strug­gling on hills mid­way through the sixth stage, Team Type 1 exe­cuted per­fect team tac­tics to put three rid­ers into the win­ning breakaway.

Efimkin grabbed the leader’s jer­sey and never looked back. Team Type 1 rode to defend his lead in the final two stages to secure a huge vic­tory after notch­ing a dozen sec­ond and third places in the open­ing three months of rac­ing in Europe.

“This is the biggest win of my career and I thank my team­mates for help­ing me do it,” Efimkin said. “We’re a strong team and every day in Turkey we got stronger. To have these glad­i­a­tors pulling for me and pro­tect­ing the leader’s jer­sey has made me a very happy man. I feel we have strong momen­tum for the next two months of racing.”

The vic­tory comes just a month after thieves heisted nearly all of Team Type 1’s bicy­cles, parts, tools and equip­ment in a rob­bery while com­pet­ing at a race in March.

“A few weeks ago at Coppi e Bartali all of our bikes were stolen. Everything. We lost wheels, we lost tools, we lost time trial posi­tions built into the frame­sets. But we took the right mea­sures to build back up. Everyone on the team, rid­ers, staff, man­age­ment, all put in over­time to get to where we are now,” said team gen­eral man­ager Vassili Davidenko. “Winning the Tour of Turkey this year is a great hon­our for us and a great reflec­tion of the pro­gram we built.”

Colnago-CSF Inox also enjoyed a fine run through Turkey, win­ning the third stage with Belletti, who also claimed the leader’s jer­sey for one day.

Up next for Team Type 1 is the Tour of California while Colnago-CSF Inox is head­ing to the Giro d’Italia.