Ina-Yoko Teutenberg blasted to victory at the end of a breakaway on stage five of the Giro della Toscana race in Italy on Saturday.  The Columbia-HTC rider’s win at the end of the 100.9-kilometre stage from Segromigno in Piano to Capannori was Teutenberg’s 24th victory of the 2009 season.

“It’s good to win like this from a break, it’s more satisfying than in a bunch sprint because you have to work more for it and there’s more strategy involved” Teutenberg said afterwards.  “I must have spent around 75 kilometres off the front today.  There were five of us in the break that finally stayed away and it wasn’t easy for me to make it to the finish. I got dropped on a big climb close to the end and then caught the others on the descent before finally outsprinting them.  I didn’t think the break would survive because it had a rider in it who was dangerous for the overall. But when we got more than five minutes I started thinking we had a good chance.”

Teutenberg said Columbia-HTC teammate Judith Ardnt, who won in the same finish last year, had advised her on the best tactics for winning the stage.  “Judith told me that there was a kind of chicane 200 metres before the finish and that if I got into the chicane first then it wouldn’t be possible for the rest to get past me. I did that and it worked out fine.”

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