Rory Sutherland (Rabobank) was one of the first attackers in stage 5, and ended up spending the best part of 170 km front of the peloton. He was caught with 40 km to go and finished 160th at 10'02 down, while his teammate Theo Eltink survived until 5 km to go with the remnants of the break.
Cyclingnews' John Trevorrow spoke to a tired but satisfied Sutherland at the finish in Aquila, where he told us, "It was a hard day. I think it was a hard day in the peloton, but it was also hard in front. I went away with seven guys after 20 kilometres. But across the top of the climb, Bettini and the group come across, which surprised everyone, and from that moment, the group stopped working. No-one worked because they were a bit scared with Bettini there. I know he was probably angry about yesterday, but most of the guys weren't happy with him being there because he was going to hamper how far we were going to go in the race.
