Evans grabs gutsy Tirreno-Adriatico stage win

Evans went into the penultimate stage with just a 02sec lead on Italy's Ivan Basso (Liquigas), and, riding into the finish after strong support from his BMC team, found himself facing several attacks late in the 178km stage from Ussita to Macerata.

The Australian, however, fought back every time a gap opened up, and even had to deal with some elbow argy-bargy in the final kilometre with former teammate Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto), before pulling away from a select group in the final few hundred metres.

A two-man breakaway which included Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Bert Grabsch (HTC-Highroad) ran away to a more than seven minutes lead - but was brought back with 16 km to go after teams BMC, Liquigas and Lampre organised themselves for the chase.

On the final climb of Macerata, Michele Scarponi (Lampre) attacked as did Giovanni Visconti (IFarnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) but a patient Evans waited until the finish was in sight to make his winning move.

"I'm feeling very happy," Evans said. "Yesterday was one thing to take the (leader's) jersey, but to win a stage in the jersey makes me really, really happy."

Ahead of the final 9.3 km time trial stage Evans leads Scarponi by 9 seconds and Basso follows in third at 12 seconds. Previous race leader Robert Gesink (Rabobank) is fourth at 15 seconds.

"My main thing – and the first plan today – was not to lose any seconds," said Evans. "Of course, if there was any opportunity to gain seconds, that's always an advantage going into tomorrow. We're still riding only a 10-kilometer time trial but it's always a bigger advantage than a lesser advantage."

Last 15 minutes of stage 6: Italian commentary.



Stage 6: 178km, Ussita to Macerata.

1 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC 4:37:58, 2 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli, 3 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre-ISD, 4 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale, 5 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale, 6 Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM, 7 Stefano Garzelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone, 8 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank, 9 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto, 10 Tiago Machado (Por) RadioShack.

General classification:

1 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC 27:26:33, 2 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre-ISD 0:00:09, 3 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:00:12, 4 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank 0:00:15, 5 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:00:21, 6 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre-ISD 0:00:24, 7 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto 0:00:33, 8 Tiago Machado (Por) RadioShack 0:00:42, 9 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Sky 0:00:46, 10 Marco Pinotti (Ita) HTC-Highroad.