Movistar Team started showing its strength for the mountains in the 2015 Giro d’Italia as two of its riders made it into a huge escape group on stage three, a short (136km), yet demanding (3,000m of altitude) ride from Rapallo to Sestri Levante.
Rubén Fernández and Jesús Herrada entered a 25-man group which the two Spaniards tried to split in several occassions. Fernandez, doing most of the work in a four-man move always much controlled by the riders in pursuit and the Tinkoff-led bunch, ended up dropping back and leaving the responsibility to Herrada. The latter went after Pavel Kochetkov (KAT) as the Russian attacked on the day’s main climb of Barbagelata (Cat-2), but the lack of force after no feed zones were placed on today's route - the team cars unable to get to his group with gaps under one minute - made his chances limited. On the final descent, Domenico Pozzovivo (ALM) suffered a hard crash, fortunately not life-threatening but a huge scare for everyone in the Giro convoy.
Big selection on the climbs meant that neither Dayer Quintana - still recovering from his bruises after crashing on Sunday - nor Juanjo Lobato made the 75-man group, from which race leader Michael Matthews (OGE) took the win. Day four should be more complicated for a ‘volata’, with more explosive efforts (150km) awaiting the riders as the descent of Biassa (Cat-3, summit just 10k from the end) ends right before La Spezia’s finishing straight.
Sophie ENEVER 25 years | today |
Mattias RECK 54 years | today |
Rodney SANTIAGO 36 years | today |
Sivianny ROJAS 36 years | today |
Boas LYSGAARD 20 years | today |
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