Giro D’Italia Heads Into Austria

Michele Scarponi of the Diquigiovanni team won the sixth stage of the Giro d’Italia on Thursday as the race crossed into Austria.

Scarponi, who won March’s Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, finished the 248-kilometer (154 mile) stage in five hours, 49 minutes, 55 seconds. Scarponi was part of a five-rider breakaway that led the race for most of the day before the Italian dropped his companions and rode alone across the finish line. Danilo Di Luca of Italy held on to the overall leader’s pink jersey after finishing 36 seconds back.

The three-week race stays overnight in Austria with a 151.6-mile seventh stage starting in Innsbruck, before crossing into Switzerland and then back into Italy to Chiavenna.

This centennial edition of the Giro D’Italia ends May 31 in Rome.

The leading American, Levi Leipheimer, is currently in fourth place.

His Astana teammate, Lance Armstrong, who returned this season after 3 1/2 years of retirement and broke his collarbone in March, putting him on the sideline again, is not concerned about his start.

“As I said at the beginning, the first half of the Giro is not going to be my half. I’ve got to ride into the race and still get my condition back after the accident,” Armstrong said. “I can’t expect to be at the front.

“I didn’t come in with any big illusions. I knew that I would be minutes behind the best guys,” Armstrong said. “The key is to ride within your limits, so that when you get dropped you find your threshold and hold it there. We’ll see what happens in the second half of the Giro.”

Standings after stage 6

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