Mason Hollyman showed off the Israel – Premier Tech colors with a strong performance in the breakaway on the difficult stage 3 of Coppi e Bartali.
With nearly 4000 meters of climbing on the menu, today’s stage was destined to be a challenging day in the saddle. However, it didn’t scare of 21-year-old Hollyman who was eager to show his climbing legs in the strong field.
After the initial breakaway attempt of the day was brought back by the peloton on the slopes of the first long climb, Hollyman was quick to jump into the next move, which turned out to be the decisive one.
“When that first group got caught, Chris [Froome] told me: ‘Now is the time!’ and I jumped right away”, Hollyman explains. “I felt pretty good to begin with but in the last 1.5 hours, I started to suffer from my allergies and I couldn’t follow the pace anymore. Still, it was good to be out there today and overall, I’m happy with the day.”
After the peloton caught Hollyman, Guy Niv was the next IPT rider to attack. The Israeli managed to get a gap of 20 seconds on the pack but on the final climb, the GC favorites upped the pace once again with multiple attacks. Niv finished as best IPT rider on the day in 25th place.
