Viviani claims back-to-back wins on stage 3 – Giro d’Italia
Giro d’Italia 2018
Stage 3
The Quick-Step Floors fast-man was forced into the barriers by Ireland’s Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a hectic finale but still managed to keep his composure and find the requisite kick to double up in the Red Sea resort of Eilat.
Bennett faded in the final fifty metres as Italy’s Modolo (EF Education First-Drapac) surged through to take second place in the 229km stage from Be’er Sheva.
Italy’s Jakub Mareczko (Wilier-Triestina) and Dutchman Danny van Poppel (LottoNL-Jumbo) completed the top five as Australia’s Rohan Dennis (BMC) retained the pink jersey on the eve of the race returning to Italy after the historic grande partenza in Israel.
Viviani’s victory was the 29th for his Quick-Step team this season and saw the 29-year-old extend his lead in the ciclamino jersey points classification.
Italy’s Enrico Barbin (Bardiani-CSF) consolidated his lead in the blue jersey king of the mountains classification while Viviani’s team-mate Max Schachmann retained his white jersey in the youth standings.
Barbin attacked at the outset of the second-longest stage of the race, joining forces with Canada’s Guillaume Boivin (Israel Cycling Academy) and compatriot Marco Frapporti (Androni-Sidermec) to build up maximum lead of seven-and-a-half minutes over the sluggish pack.
Boivin, who was involved in two breakaways in Saturday’s second stage, took maximum points at both intermediate sprints as the race traversed the famous Ramon Crater in the Negev Desert.
Behind, Viviani signalled his intent by mopping up the maximum remaining points in the peloton ahead of the only categorised climb of the day.
Having been denied by Barbin on Saturday’s climb, Boivin bickered with his rival as the short kilometre-long climb approached, spurring Frapporti into an opportunistic attack.
Frapporti duly rode clear to take the 3pts over the top before Barbin beat Boivin to second place and extend his KOM tally to 5pts – two points clear of both Boivin and Frapporti.
With a strong tailwind in the peloton’s sails, the gap came down to under a minute with 40 kilometres remaining. The leading trio extended their lead as numerous splits in the pack occurred.
But it all came back together approaching Eilat with Barbin the first of the escapees to call it a day before Boivin and Frapporti were gobbled up with 6km remaining.
Quick-Step Floors had total control of proceedings with Viviani being towed along by four team-mates as the impressive Zdenek Stybar and Schachmann set a stifling tempo on the front.
An apparent lapse approaching the final kilometre saw Viviani drop back and lose his leadout men – or perhaps he was simply following the wheel he feared most. For when Bennett launched his sprint early, Viviani shouldered in ahead of Modolo to take the Irishman’s slipstream with aplomb.
But Bennett swerved violently to the right to close the door on Viviani, who was forced to check his speed and lean into his opponent before putting in his decisive dig.
As Bennett swerved again to the left, Modolo powered through – but no one was going to beat the man of the moment, Viviani.
“This morning in the first two hours I felt really bad and my energy was low despite my win yesterday,” Viviani said.
“But I felt better later and I knew that I was the favourite at the finish. With the wind we had a tactic and we followed the plan. I saw Bennett go early and I went on his right side and did the full sprint to the line.”
Meanwhile, Australia’s Dennis kept out of trouble to retain his race lead and ensure that the maglia rosa will be on his shoulders when the race resumes in Sicily on Tuesday.
“It feels really good,” said Dennis, who leads defending champion Tom Dumoulin – winner of Friday’s opening time trial – by one second.
Belgium’s Victor Campenaerts (LottoNL-Jumbo), who was tied with Dennis on Friday’s time trial, was one of many riders to be caught out in the finale and dropped out of the top 10 after conceding 31 seconds.
“It was a stressful day and in the end it was a lot of effort to stay out of trouble and away from the splits towards the finish line,” said 27-year-old Dennis, who has finished only two of six previous Grand Tours.
After Monday’s rest day as the race packs up and travels from Israel back to Europe, the 101st edition of the Giro continues on Tuesday with the hilly 198km stage from Catania to Caltagirone in Sicily.
