2017 Giro d'Italia Stage 3 Results & Recap
Stage 3 of the 2017 Giro d'Italia is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Gaviria wins in Cagliari, takes the lead in GC
By Clara Beard
Fernando Gaviria took top honors in Cagliari Sunday, making the Colombian the youngest in history to ever win a stage at the Giro d’Italia. The sprinter’s team laid the winning foundation for Gaviria with 15 km remaining in the short race, attacking into a brutal 50kph crosswind and maintaining a slight advantage to the line.
Rüdiger Selig (Bora – Hansgrohe) finished second and Italian champion Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek – Segafredo) took third.
Despite looking relatively flat on its profile, the third stage of the Giro d’Italia was plagued with wind, which ramped up in the latter part of the stage making for a nervous finish, but thankfully without any major crashes.
At the 0km mark, the race started off with an attack by Eugert Zhupa (Wilier-Selle Italia) with Jan Tratnik (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Kristian Sbaragli (Dimension Data) and Ivan Rovny (Gazprom-Rusvelo) quick to make the breakaway a quartet.
Sbaragli was fifth in the points competition at the start of the stage, so his inclusion meant he was only hunting for sprint points, for which there were 2 opportunities today. He only took the first at 35 km into the stage with no challenge from his breakaway companions.\n \nHis work completed, Sbaragli coasted back into the safety of the bunch leaving three riders up ahead. The trio maintained an advantage that hovered between two minutes and a minute and a half through the fast stage. By the time the peloton reached 50km to go, Lotto Soudal made quick work of reeling the break back in.
Seeing the peloton behind, Tratnik gave it one last go to hold on to a slim 10 seconds just a bit longer, but it was short lived.
The strong wind caused a constant shift in teams at the front of the peloton, some looking out for their GC leaders, others attempting to get their sprinters up front early because of the pending crosswind. As expected, when the crosswind hit, Quickstep drove the front forcing a split, which race leader Griepel initially made, but quickly lost contact.
From there, it was the Quickstep show with 6 out of the 10 in the lead group represented. They held a 15 second lead for the last 5 km and Gaviria polished off a solid day’s work by the Belgian team. \n
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