Italian Giulio Ciccone won the tenth stage of the Giro d’Italia yesterday, which was marked by the withdrawal of Sky team leader and race favourite Mikel Landa.
Luxembourg’s Bob Jungels took the leader’s pink jersey from teammate Gianluca Brambilla after the 219km stage between Campi Bisenzio and Sestola, becoming the first man from his country to hold the lead in this race since Charly Gaul in 1959.
Jungels now holds a 26-second lead from Costa Rican Andrey Amador in the overall standings, with former champion and home hope Vincenzo Nibali fifth, less than a minute adrift.
Bardiani rookie Ciccone, 21, joined a breakaway early on in the day and pulled away on a descent, before comfortably holding on up the final climb to Sestola to take a stunning stage victory on his maiden Grand Tour.
Ciccone’s fellow escapee, Tinkoff’s Ivan Rovny, crossed 42 seconds behind in second, with another member of the break, Darwin Atapuma, in third.
The big move of the day in the leaders’ group came from Amador, but Brambilla sacrificed his own hopes of keeping the pink jersey by helping Etixx teammate Jungels stave off the attacks of the Movistar man. “It is unusual that the leader of the race rides for someone else, but that just shows the spirit in the group,” Jungels said.
Spaniard Landa, who was eighth overall going into the day, pulled out complaining of sickness. Sky have a recent history of losing their leader at the Giro after Bradley Wiggins pulled out sick in 2013, and Richie Porte pulled out in 2015 after a series of bad luck and a fall left him trailing badly in the overall standings.
Landa finished third last year while competing for Kazakh outfit Astana. He was among the race favourites and was trailing from the first climb of the 219km stage between Campi Bisenzio and Sestola.
“Mikel woke up early this morning feeling unwell with abdominal pains. It appears as though he has a viral gastroenteritis,” Sky team doctor Inigo Sarriegui said. “We will assess him at the team hotel and then determine the best course of treatment to ensure he recovers as quickly as possible.”
Landa’s teammates and fellow Spaniards David Lopez and Mikel Nieve tried to encourage the 26-year-old but he was trailing by over six minutes by the 50km mark, and finally gave up 15km later at the base of the second climb of the day.
Landa was one minute 18 seconds behind overall leader Gianluca Brambilla after a strong performance in Sunday’s individual time trial. Sky team chief Dave Brailsford said: “We are really disappointed for Mikel, who was riding well and looking forward to attacking in the mountains and animating the race.”
Landa had made the Giro his main objective this season since joining Sky from the Astana team. He won the Tour of Trentin last month, one of the warm-up races for the Giro. Despite failing to make his mark during the first week of the race he came back in Sunday’s time trial in Chianti and was eighth overall.

King wins Tour of California 2nd stage

AFP/Los Angeles

American rider Ben King scored a surprise victory in the second stage of the Tour of California on Monday, completing a remarkable comeback from serious injury that had placed a question mark over his season. The 27-year-old Cannondale rider’s season had been thrown into turmoil in January after skidding on ice during a training ride and suffering a broken ankle which required surgery.
However, there was no sign of the injury’s after-effects on Monday as King swept to victory on a gruelling second day of racing in America’s most prestigious stage race, a 92.3-mile (148.5-km) course from South Pasadena to Santa Clarita.
King prevailed after the peloton failed to reel in a breakaway involving the Cannondale rider, William Barta (Axeon Hagens Berman), Sindre Skjoestad Lunke (Giant-Alpecin) and Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling).
That group of four blasted away during a descent and soon built up a healthy gap of around 7min 30sec at around the halfway mark. Lunke gradually faded leaving Huffman, King, and Barta at the front.
 Although the peloton eventually closed the gap, it was not enough to overhaul King and Huffman who took first and second.
 King crossed in a time of 3hr 52min 9sec, just clear of Huffman. Norwegian rider Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) was eight seconds back in third while overnight leader and defending champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) was fourth.
 As well as the stage honours, King takes the yellow jersey into Tuesday’s third stage.
 King leads the general classification with a total time of 8:12:34, eight seconds ahead of Huffman and 14 seconds clear of last year’s winner Sagan in third.
 Stage three is a challenging 104.1-mile ride northwest from Thousand Oaks, just outside Los Angeles, along the rugged California coast to the wealthy enclave of Santa Barbara.  The route will see the peloton make an elevation gain of 10,639 feet as it finishes with a climb up the region’s famed Gibraltar Road into the heart of the Santa Ynez Mountains.