THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RIOMAGGIORE, Italy — Denis Menchov took the overall lead from Danilo Di Luca at the Giro d’Italia on Thursday by winning the race’s key individual time trial, and dedicated the victory to injured teammate Pedro Horillo Munoz.
A Russian rider with the Rabobank team, Menchov clocked one hour 34 minutes 29 seconds over the highly technical 60.6-kilometre route along the coastal area known as Cinque Terre.
Horillo Munoz tumbled 60 metres off the side of the road in a high-speed descent on Saturday and is recovering from severe injuries at a hospital in Bergamo.
"He was very unlucky and I hope he bounces back soon," Menchov said of the Spaniard. "We had a nasty scare and now Pedro will realize that we’re winning and that will make him happy."
Di Luca finished sixth, one minute 54 seconds behind Menchov, and dropped to second overall, 34 seconds behind.
"Now Dennis has to defend his lead," Di Luca said. "There’s still a lot to be decided and there’s still a lot of work to do."
Menchov also won the race’s toughest uphill finish to Alpi di Siusi in stage 5, and has two Spanish Vuelta victories.
"Today was one of the most decisive stages so far in this tour," Menchov said. "It was an important step toward to trying win, but nothing is decided yet. There are still a lot of harder stages to come."
Levi Leipheimer of the United States placed second in the time trial, 20 seconds behind, and Stefano Garzelli of Italy was third, 1:03 back.
Michael Barry of Toronto was 116th.
Leipheimer was cut and bruised in a freak fall Wednesday when someone dropped a water bottle in front of him.
"It’s never the best thing to crash, especially the day before a time trial, so maybe I can blame that a little bit but I don’t like to make excuses and to be honest I felt good and I don’t feel like it held me back," Leipheimer said. "Menchov was the best today and hat’s off to him."
Lance Armstrong, Leipheimer’s teammate at Astana, was 13th, 2:26 behind.
"We had this idea to not go full gas in the beginning and try to accelerate on the last climb and that was not possible," Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel said of Armstrong. "When he got to the bottom of the last climb he could maintain the same rhythm but he could not accelerate."
Armstrong is still regaining his form after three and a half years of retirement and breaking his collarbone in March. The seven-time Tour de France winner finished one spot behind defending Tour champion Carlos Sastre, and one spot ahead of former world time trial champion Michael Rogers.
"Of course you always want to be as good as possible but overall I think it was a good time trial," Bruyneel said. "More than one and a half hours of time trialing after such a long time — I think he’s doing well."
Armstrong appeared bothered by a back problem and took his hands off the handlebars of his bike to stretch out on several occasions.
"I’ve never seen him do that in the past," Bruyneel said. "Obviously it was a hard effort."
Armstrong has stopped speaking to reporters, apparently angry over the fallout of a rider protest he helped orchestrate in Milan on Sunday.
Leipheimer moved into third place overall, 40 seconds behind Menchov, while Rogers fell from third to sixth overall after finishing 14th.
Armstrong moved up from 16th to 12th overall, 6:34 behind Menchov.
Barry is 151st overall while the Canadian-owned Cervelo Test Team is ninth in the team standings.
.The 12th stage was one of the most gruelling time trials in recent grand tours, and took riders about 30 minutes longer to complete than most other races against the clock.
Hugging the spectacular Ligurian coast, the route tilted uphill immediately with a 15.8-kilometre climb followed by a nerve-racking descent full of hairpin curves with cliffs heading down to the sea lurking just over the guardrails.
A second climb of 8.8 kilometres began shortly after the stage’s midpoint, with another hair-raising descent.
By one estimate, the course contained 600 curves, many of them filled by large crowds.
"The only word I can think of is epic," Leipheimer said. "I know that word is used a lot, but it truly deserves to be described that way today."
With the temperature hovering near 30 C heat was also a factor.
Olympic time trial champion Fabian Cancellara withdrew from the race before the stage.
Stage 13 on Friday is a mostly flat 176-kilometre route from Lido di Camaiore to Florence.
The race ends May 31 in Rome.