Max Sciandri grabs 2nd - (40kb)

Max Sciandri achieved the best result for a British cyclist for a long time, when he finished 2nd on today's stage of the Giro d'Italia. The Linda McCartney Foods rider came agonisingly close to taking an incredible double win for the team, after David McKenzie's fantastic win in Teramo yesterday.

Max, who lives near Prato, had earmarked this day for his own, and was determined to do everything he could to win. On one of the hardest stages, with 257kms and a great deal of mountainous road to cover, he was at the business end of affairs all day. When the move he was in split on the day's final climb, he and Filippo Casagrande of Vini Caldirola took on an inspired chase, and made contact with the leaders with just 20kms of racing remaining.

The group of 8 men plunged down the winding final descent, desperate to hold off their pursuers. The pace was of kamikaze proportions, and looked to have claimed the chances of Mapei's Axel Merckx when he missed a bend and disappeared into the crowd lining the route. With Max's fearsome finishing speed a 2nd amazing Linda McCartney victory looked to be a possibility. However, Merckx, son of the great Eddy Merckx, proved that Max is not the only man in the bunch who can recover seemingly lost causes, and fought his way back up to the leaders with just a couple of kilometres remaining.

Now Mapei, with Merckx and Paolo Lanfranchi, had 2 riders in the 8-man group, and they used their advantage to pull off the old one-two. Merckx attacked along the right-hand gutter and Lanfranchi sat up, giving him a small but crucial gap. He hung on to take the stage by a mere 6 seconds, with Max winning the dash for 2nd with power to spare.

The Linda McCartney man punched the bars in dismay, victory snatched away. The team will spend the evening trying to convince their star man that 2nd place on a stage of the Giro, and a key stage at that, is a fantastic result, and one that the team could only have dreamed of a short time ago. But Max, born in Derby 32 years ago to an English mother and Italian father is the type of man who will settle for nothing less than victory. After two great attempts in the last three days, maybe it will be third time lucky for the British Olympic medallist.

What a weekend for the Linda McCartney Foods team. They have taken a 1st and a 2nd place in the world's 2nd biggest race, one of the largest annual sporting events on the planet. Within a week, they have scored an unbelievable 5 top-ten placings through the efforts of David McKenzie, Max Sciandri, Ciaran Power and Tayeb Braikia, despite the apparently catastrophic loss of Olympic Champion Pascal Richard and Aussie Ben Brooks before a pedal had been turned in anger. A tremendous performance that has inspired the Italian public to take the team into their hearts.