 Acqua & Sapone rider Dario Andriotto set the early time to beat. After a while, Yuriy Krivtsov bested his time. Several different riders in succession then posted successively (but, in the first few cases, marginally) better times than the best time that had come before them. Alessandro Bertolini, David Millar, Marco Pinotti, Giovanni Visconti, Bradley Wiggins, and Stefano Garzelli were all briefly the stage leader after they crossed the finish line. Bertolini in particular was stage leader for about three minutes, as Millar started just behind him and barely beat his time.
