Stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia was taken out in exemplary style yesterday, with Mark Cavendish stomping home for the win – almost a bike length ahead of closest rival, Davide Apollonio from Team Sky. The 184km stage from Castelfirdado to Ravenna was hotly contested by an aggressive peloton, but HTC Highroad kept their cool for the entire stage, with the end result placing Cavendish over the line first.

The manxman’s team entered the final 2km on the front of the peloton, as they had been for the majority of the stage – but a small crash almost took down the entire HTC Highroad team, as they entered one of the first corners of the township of Ravenna. A rider from Androni Cycling Team misjudged a sharp left hand turn, and cut in front of the Cavendish leadout, and into the barriers. This set off a chain reaction, with several big names including Robbie Hunter hitting the tarmac.

The peloton continued in to the village, with the familiar colours of HTC Highroad stringing out off the front of the field, which had now been reduced to less than 30 riders after the aforementioned pile-up. This still did not reduce the risk of HTC losing their stage win, with “every team coming to the front to fight for the finale”.

Hitting the final kilometre, and it was Lars Bak who continued the ruthless pace of the HTC Highroad leadout – followed directly behind by Mark Renshaw, who took over the controls with 500m to go. Renshaw again increased the pace until the 200m indicator, where Cavendish began to make his move. Anticipating a response by Italian stallion Pettachi, Mark Cavendish hit the gas early, leaving his biggest concern behind…

However, it was Sky Pro Team rider, Davide Apollonio who stealthily charged across from Pettachi’s wheel, and up behind Cavendish who was 80m from the line. Apollonio had tried to run up the right hand side of the stage winner, but faded against the raw power of Cavendish who at this point already had his hands aloft. The tally of wins for Cavendish is at two for now, but he has hopes of bettering that in the coming stages…