Israel Start-Up Nation came very close to victory on stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia. Davide Cimolai won the sprint from the reduced peloton, who were chasing a sole leader, ultimately taking second place.
After yesterday’s pure sprint stage, it wasn’t always a given that today’s stage would have the same outcome. With several challenging hills on the final part of the stage, the sprinters wouldn’t get an easy ride to the line.
Early on, eight riders broke away from the peloton. The bunch didn’t seem too concerned and it wasn’t until the gap surpassed six minutes that the pack started to react and initiated a chase. Slowly but steadily the gap started to come down as the terrain got more and more hilly. However, despite a furious chase that saw multiple sprinters getting dropped, the break still had over a minute on the peloton as the remaining riders up front took on the final 15 km.
Ultimately, a single rider managed to hold off the reduced bunch by just a handful of seconds, while Cimolai put an impressive performance to win the sprint within the group to take second place on the stage. Patrick Bevin finished fifth as Alessandro De Marchi, Guy Niv, and team leader Dan Martin also finished in the group.
Davide Cimolai: “Today, I suffered a lot on the climbs, especially the second last one was hard for me, but I managed to survive it and stay in the group. At the end, I took the responsibility to do the sprint and I’m happy for this second place, beating guys like Sagan, Viviani, and Gaviria. However, at the same time, I’m also disappointed because I lost an opportunity to win a stage in the Giro! For sure we will try again but you can’t turn back time and change what has already.”
