Cycling
While the Giro bleeds red, Matthews wears pink
MONTECASSINO, Italy – Overall leader Michael Matthews claimed his first individual victory on the sixth stage of the Giro d’Italia on Thursday, but the race was marred by a crash which left Giampoalo Caruso seriously injured.
The incident occurred on the wet road approaching the final climb and involved several cyclists, but Caruso was the most seriously affected. The Katusha rider was taken to hospital in an ambulance with unknown injuries. Caruso remained conscious but static on the road for a long while before the ambulance arrived.
The crash affected the race, including denting the chances of several contenders.
Joaquim Rodriguez of Spain, one of the prerace favorites, also was injured and taken to the hospital. He finished 7:43 behind Matthews, virtually costing his chance of victory.
Nairo Quintana fell 2:08 down overall.
Matthews won the Giro’s longest stage, a 160-mile route which ended in a climb up to Montecassino. Tim Wellens was second and Evans third.
Matthews will wear the pink jersey for a fifth day, with the Australian cyclist extending his lead to 21 seconds. Evans moved into second, gaining a lot of time on his rivals for the overall prize.
In 100-degree Calif. heat, Phinney wins Stage 5
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – American Taylor Phinney raced to a 12-second victory Thursday in 100-degree heat in the fifth stage of the Tour of California, and Britain’s Bradley Wiggins retained the overall lead.
Phinney, riding for BMC, escaped from the front group with 19 miles left and completed the 107.4-mile stage from Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara in 3 hours, 59 minutes, 33 seconds for his seventh career pro win.
Wiggins, the Sky rider who won the 2012 Tour de France, took the race lead after winning the second stage. He finished in the field Thursday to keep a 28-second margin over Australia’s Rohan Dennis of Garmin-Sharp.
Hockey
Third time’s a charm, too, for Latvia at hockey worlds
MINSK, Belarus – Cody Hodgson had a hat trick, and Matt Read scored twice to lead Canada’s 6-1 rout of Denmark on Thursday at the ice hockey world championships.
The United States suffered a second consecutive loss, 6-5 to Latvia, which earned its third win over the U.S. at worlds.
NFL
Aaron Hernandez charged in two more shooting deaths
BOSTON – Aaron Hernandez ambushed and shot to death two men after a chance encounter inside a Boston nightclub, prosecutors said Thursday as they announced new murder charges against the former NFL star, who already was awaiting trial in another shooting death.
The victims in the 2012 killing, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, were shot to death in a car as they waited at a red light on a July night in Boston’s South End neighborhood.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley would not elaborate on what happened in the nightclub but said that after the men left, Hernandez followed in a sports utility vehicle, then pulled up alongside the vehicle and fired multiple shots from a .38 caliber revolver into the passenger’s side, killing de Abreu and Furtado, and wounding a third man. Two other passengers in the car were uninjured.
Conley said the victims were “ambushed and executed.” He said there was no evidence that Hernandez knew the victims before that evening.
Weeks later, Hernandez signed a five-year deal worth about $40 million with the New England Patriots and went on to play 12 games as a tight end that season.
Hernandez is awaiting trial in the separate 2013 shooting death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd near Hernandez’s North Attleborough home. Hernandez is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to murder in Lloyd’s death.
Associated Press
