Simon Geschke celebrated his 29th birthday with a sixth place finish at the end of the tough drag to the line on the third day of racing in Italy. The team was well represented all day with Chad Haga making the day’s breakaway of five riders and spending the day at the front of the race.

The escape eventually came back into the fold with 18km to go after a late effort by Haga, but from here a sprint looked likely, but with the tough drag to the line on the finishing circuits it was not going to be easy. It turned out to be a case of who could hold on longest in the sprint to the line and Greg van Avermaet (BMC) made it over first with Geschke not far behind to take sixth.

From kilometre zero the first attacks came and it was this attack that stuck, with Haga being attentive to follow the move. Behind the break the peloton sat up and was happy for the gap to grow and grow. When it reached 11 minutes the first real reaction came and it was soon back to around seven. With another potential sprint opportunity on the cards many teams were keen to bring the break back and the gap continued to drop steadily as the kilometres ticked by.

Team Giant-Alpecin were happy to sit back int he wheels with Haga out front also giving Luka Mezgec an opportunity to rest as much as possible after his high-speed fall in yesterday’s sprint finish which left him with a lot of cuts and bruised to show.

As the gap came under a minute Haga and one other pushed on to try and stay out front as long as possible but their time was up with 18km to race.

In the final kilometres the guys brought Geschke up into position as the pace continued to rise and the streets got narrower and more technical. They had the chase to see the finish before the sprint as the race ended on laps of the finishing circuit, but the final drag to the line wasn’t something you could prepare that well for as the riders in the top ten positions went head to head in the final drag race to the finish.

Van Avermaet just managed to hold off the charge of Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) on the line and Haga was only a few metres behind trailing the first few over the line. With van Avermaet taking the win he did enough to assume the race lead going into tomorrow’s undulating stage to Castelraimondo.

Haga told after the stage: “I had fun racing today! I got the green light to go for the breaks so I attacked from km 0. It was hard out there though, all day, but from what I hear it wasn’t much easier in the field behind. I felt good though and it was good to get out front again, making things easier for the guys behind.”

Team coach Marc Reef added: “Having studied the final for today we planned to race for Simon as it suited him. In the beginning Chad and Thierry [Hupond] could go for the breaks and Chad managed to get away with four others straight away which took the pressure off behind. It was still hard though as the chase was fast behind as they were strong out front. It was lined out for most of the day.

“They were caught on the penultimate finishing lap of five, with a climb of a kilometre to the line. The guys didn’t manage to stay together and so they ended up losing energy trying to do this. Simon was alone with 2.5km to go but in a perfect position, and he made it through here into the final kilometre but had to use up some vital energy here to stay at the front. In the end this cost him but he held on for a strong sixth place. It was a good display from the team overall today though, well represented throughout and staying out of trouble.”