ALPI DI SIUSI, Italy — Denis Menchov of Russia won the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia in a grueling uphill finish Wednesday and Lance Armstrong lost nearly three minutes.

Danilo Di Luca of Italy crossed second and took the overall leader's pink jersey from Thomas Lovkvist of Sweden, who was third.

Menchov covered the 77.68-mile leg that began in San Martino di Castrozza in an unofficial time of 3 hours, 15 minutes, 23 seconds. The stage ended with a 15.5-mile climb, and Armstrong finished an unofficial 2:59 behind Menchov and dropped to 22nd overall, 3:34 behind Di Luca.

"I'm definitely a little tired. It was a hard grind," Armstrong said. "I knew that we would be behind, and we tried to limit our losses. I thought it would be two minutes, but three minutes is OK."

The toughest part of the climb came in the final 6.2 miles, with the gradient at eight and nine percent. Armstrong lost contact with the leaders 3.7 miles from the finish.

Three Astana teammates — Janez Brajkovic, Daniel Navarro Garcia and Jose Luis Rubiera — stayed with the Texan and helped him avoid losing even more time.

"Like I said in the beginning, the first half (of the race) is not going to be my half," said Armstrong, who is recovering from a broken collarbone. "I have to get my condition back, and I'm not going to be in the front."

With 1.2 miles to go, Ivan Basso set the pace in a select leader's group with six other riders — Astana's Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner, Di Luca, defending Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre, Menchov and Lovkvist.

In the end, it was Di Luca and Menchov who battled it out in a sprint.

The stage began with a short climb over the Rolle pass, where a group of six riders broke away after 3.7 miles.

Giovanni Visconti, the leader of the ISD team, joined the breakaway on a downhill section, and the seven riders gained an advantage of 4 minutes, 32 seconds at one point. The breakaway riders were caught with 6.2 miles to go.

On Thursday, stage six covers a 154-mile route from Bressanone to Brixen Mayrhofen in Austria.

The next several stages go through rolling terrain without much climbing. The race ends May 31 in Rome.