With Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) winning the bunch sprint, FDJ were the big losers in today's thirteenth stage of the Giro d'Italia but the team had made a deliberate decision not to do all the chase work themselves. Having asked to get more help, they preferred to let the break stay away instead of risk getting beaten by their fresher rivals.

Nacer Bouhanni missed one of his final chances to take a fourth stage in the Giro d'Italia in today's flat 13th stage of the race when a three-rider breakaway surprisingly stayed away to the finish. Bouhanni dutifully won the sprint for fourth but with three riders up the road, it only allowed him to consolidate his lead in the points classification.

FDJ had carried the bulk of the responsibility to chase down the early break, with Arnaud Courteille, Francis Mourey, Alexandre Geniez and Jussi Veikkanen all doing a lot of work. With their rival sprint teams only committing 1 or 2 riders to the chase, however, they chose to stop their effort, knowing that they risked that the break would stay away.

"We worked to win the stage but we didn't want to let the others look at us and then taking the risk of getting beaten," sports director Frederic Guesdon said. "Nacer already has three stage wins. How many do the others have?

"We had to choose and we chose that we preferred the break to stay away instead of giving the win to another sprinter. We played the game. We worked but not to bring everybody else to the finish. All the others waited to the last minute to launch their effort. Today Nacer has strengthened his lead in the points competition.

"I'm disappointed because my team worked all day and I have not rewarded them with a win," Bouhanni said. "In the intermediate sprint, I finished second behind Nizzolo but I knew that the finish offered more points.

"Some teams could ride with us. I asked for help but they all refused. They let us work but that's cycling.

"Tomorrow we hit the mountains but my condition is good," he said. "Maybe we will have another opportuity to win on stage 17 to Vittorio Veneto but I am not sure. In any case, I will do eveything to win for a fourth time in Trieste."