Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) continued his huge dominance at the Giro d’Italia as he again made it look easy when he crushed the opposition in the bunch sprint on the third stage of the race. After another splendid lead-out from his teammates, he barely had to push the pedals to easily distance Elia Viviani (Sky) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek) and make it two in a row. With the win, he also took the maglia rosa on the eve of the first rest day.

 

Going into the Giro d’Italia, Marcel Kittel was always going to be the rider to beat in the bunch sprints but his rivals had probably not expected the German to be the dominant figure than he has been in the Dutch part of the race. After crushing the opposition in the first road stage yesterday, he again made some of the best sprinters in the world look like amateurs when he made it two in a row in Arnhem on the third day of the race.

 

The start to the race makes his experience very similar to the one he had when he made his Giro d’Italia debut two years ago. Back then, the race also started on a Friday and had a foreign Grande Partenza and after the opening team time trial, Kittel was hugely dominant in the two Irish bunch sprints before the race headed back to Italy.

 

This time things have been even better for Kittel as he can even travel to Italy with the maglia rosa on his shoulders. After his excellent time trial, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before he would move into the race lead and with two stage wins in a row, he gained enough bonus seconds to take the jersey off the shoulders of his former teammate Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin). As he had to abandon the Giro on the rest day two years ago, he even remains undefeated in Giro d’Italia road stages.

 

However, it briefly looked as though he would never get the chance to sprint for the win as a very strange hesitation on the first of two laps of the 14km finishing circuit suddenly allowed the early break of local hero Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo), Julen Amezqueta (Willier Tristina-Southeast), Giacomo Berlato (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Johann van Zyl (Dimension Data) to push their advantage out to almost three minutes. Etixx-QuickStep finally reacted with 23km to go when they put Pieter Serry, David de la Cruz and Carlos Verona on the front and very quickly IAM came to the fore to lend them a hand with Vegard Stake Laengen and later also Matthias Brändle. Lampre-Merida showed their intentions too, with Valerio Conti taking some strong turns on the front.

 

That made the gap come down quickly and it was already down to 2.10 with 20km to go and the peloton was riding so fast that a group with the likes of Hansen, Damiano Cunego (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Joe Dombrowski (Cannondale) were dropped. Nonetheless, the gap was still 1.20 as they started the final lap of the circuit.

 

Van Zyl realized that he was the strongest and launched a solo move, easily distancing his companions. Tjallingii sat up while Berlato and Amezqueta desperately tried to get back. Meanwhile, Fabian Cancellara (Trek) sat up.

 

With 10km to go, a huge crash split the field. Most of the FDJ team went down, including key lead-out men Murilo Fischer and Marc Sarreau, and Silvan Dillier (BMC), Eduard Grosu, Riccardo Stacchiotti (Nippo) and Anton Vorboyev were also involved in the tumble.

 

That didn’t make the peloton slow down though and the gap had now been brought down to 50 seconds. Tjallingii was brought back and things seemed to be on track for the sprint teams.

 

When the early workers blew up, the peloton suddenly came to a standstill and it was the GC teams Cannondale and Astana that were suddenly lined out on the front. As a consequence, the gap was no longer coming down and while it was a mind game between the sprint teams, LottoNL-Jumbo hit the front with Bram Tankink to keep Steven Kruijswijk safe.

 

Another crash with 6km to go took out Giant-Alpecin sprinter Nikias Arndt and his lead-out man Bert De Backer. Meanwhile, Willier-Triestina had started to chas and as a consequence the gap was down to 30 seconds with 5km to go where the two chasers were caught.

 

The peloton again came to a standstill, with Manuele Mori (Lampre-Merida) riding on the front and so the gap was still 25 seconds with 3.5km to go. That’s where Etixx-QuickStep finally went all in, lining David de la Cruz, Bob Jungels and Lukasz Wisniowski up on the front and as Trek lent them a hand, the gap was melting away.

 

Jungels swung off and left it to Wisniowski to close the final bit of the gap with 1.7km to go before Paolo Simion sprinted to the front with his Bardiani sprinter Nicola Ruffoni on his wheel. The Etixx-QuickStep train of Matteo Trentin, Fabio Sabatini and Kittel slotted onto their wheel and so they were in the perfect position to strike.

 

Trentin hit the front just before the flamme rouge and got some welcome help from Sam Belwey before he again took over. He stayed on the front until 700m remained when Sabatini did the lead-out.

 

Boy van Poppel (Trek) had slotted into second ahead of Kittel while Elia Viviani (Sky) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek) were fighting hard for the German’s wheel. When Sabatini swung off, van Poppel didn’t even have time to do his lead-out effort before Kittel launched his sprint. After just a few pedalstrokes, the German had already distanced his two Italian rivals significantly and he had plenty of time to celebrate the win. Viviani narrowly edged Nizzolo out in the battle for third.

 

With the 10 bonus seconds, Kittel moved into the race lead with a 9-second advantage over Dumoulin. He now gets the chance to enjoy his position on the early rest day that will allow the peloton to travel back to Italy where the race will be resumed on Tuesday. He faces a much more difficult first stage on Italian soil as stage 4 includes two categorized climbs in the second half after a flat opening. The final ascent comes 49.6km from the finish but in the final part, there are several smaller climbs, including an 1800m hill whose summit is located just 8.7km from the flat finish.

 

A flat stage

After yesterday’s spring stage, the riders faced an almost similar stage that brought them over a identical distance of 190 in the opposite direction from Nijmegen to Arnhem. The terrain was almost completely flat as there was just a small category 4 climb with 53.1km to go. In the end, the riders did two laps of a flat 14km circuit that had few technical challenges and was almost entirely flat.

 

As forecasted, it was bright sunshine when the 198 riders gathered for the start in Nijmegen and it was still a complete peloton that was present when they rolled through the neutral zone. Here a small crash involved Sam Bewley (Orica-GreenEDGE) but it was completely without drama.

 

Tjallingii on the attack

Like yesterday, the break was established immediately from the start, and again Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo) - the local hero who was chasing the mountains jersey in the last  race of his career - and Giacomo Berlato (Nippo-Vini Fantini) were part of the action. They were joined by Johann van Zyl (Dimension Data), and quite quickly Julen Amezqueta (Willier) also made contact when the lead had grown to 1.10.

 

The peloton took it very easy, and therefore the gap was already 2.38 after 8km of racing. At the 20km mark, it was 6.45 and ten kilometers later it had gone out to 8.08. It was the signal for Giant-Alpecin to increase the speed, and after they had stabilized the situation during the next 10 km, Etixx-QuickStep came to the fore to lend them a hand.

 

A stable situation

The riders covered 41.3 kilometers during the first hour after which the gap had dropped to 7.25 and the unlike yesterday it came down pretty early. Tom Stamsnijder (Giant-Alpecin) was the locomotive who ensured that it was down to 6.08 after 55km of racing.

 

Tom Stamsnijder, Cheng Ji (Giant-Alpecin), David De La Cruz and Pieter Serry (Etixx-QuickStep) took control and kept the gap stable between 5.00 and 5.30 for numerous kilometres. However, the windier conditions made the peloton more nervous than yesterday and there was a relatively hard fight for position.

 

Peraud crashes out of the race

With 102km to go, disaster struck for Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r) when his teammate Patrick Gretsch slid out in a roundabout. The veteran was unable to react and after hitting the deck hard, he left the tace in an ambulance.

 

Tjallingii led Berlato, Amezqueta and van Zyl across the line in the first intermediate sprint. In the peloton, the Trek team gathered around Giacomo Nizzolo but it was Elia Viviani (Sky) who beat Matteo Trentin (Etixx-QuickStep) in the battle for the minor positions.

 

A huge battle for position

Ji and Serry went back to work after the gap had gone out to 5.45 and got a bit of assistance from Carlos Verona (Etixx-QuickStep) but they were soon swamped by the peloton which got increasingly nervous as they approached a crucial change of direction with 77km to go. Lotto Soudal, Tinkoff, Gazprom-Rusvelo, IAM and Trek lined out their troops on the front and later also Astana and even Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) hit the front row. As a consequence, the gap melted away and it was down to less than 5 minutes when the escapees hit the final 75km.

 

IAM won the battle and it was Stefan Denifl, Matthias Brändle and Roger Kluge who led the peloton through a small town. As soon as they were back on exposed roads, Lotto Soudal took over from the Swiss team and as Lars Bak upped the pace, the peloton started to split, with numerous smaller groups getting distanced. As they hit a less exposed road, the Belgian team stopped their acceleration but that didn’t make things less hectic. BMC surged forward and Lotto Soudal also hit the front again but things calmed down when they passed through a small city. Meanwhile, Jay Thomson (Dimension Data) and Mirko Maestri (Bardiani) lost contact due to a crash.

 

A crash splits the field

A big group of around 20 riders had been distanced as the nervous peloton sped through the flat terrain and the nervous atmosphere had reduced the gap to just 3.35 with 65km to go. That allowed the group to rejoin the bunch just as a crash brought down Svein Tuft (Orica-GreenEDGE), Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff) and Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal).

 

While Hansen tried to rejoin the peloton, Lotto Soudal tried to attack again as Season De Bie and PimLigthart upped the pace and this made it difficult for a big group with Arnaud Demare (FDJ), Sergey Firsanov (Gazprom-Rusvelo), Mikel Nieve, Sebastian Henao (Sky) and Andrey Amador (Movistar) to rejoin the peloton after they had lost contact due to the crash. However, Lotto quickly stopped their attack and instead it became a big fight for position, with Cannondale hitting the front with Ramunas Navardauskas.

 

The peloton calms down

Tjallingii led Berlato, van Zyl and Amezqueta across the line in the final sprint before Kristian Sbaragli (Dimension Data) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek) sprinted out of the peloton to pick up the remaining points. Meanwhile, FDJ were chasing desperately and the Demare group regained contact with a little less than 60km to go.

 

Things calmed down a bit which allowed more riders to rejoin the peloton but the big teams were all attentive, with Serry (Etixx-QuickStep), Ivan Rovny (Tinkoff), David Lopez (Sky) and Jose Herrada (Movistar) lined out on the front. They led the peloton into the final 55km with a gap of 2.55 at a time when everybody seemed to have regained contact.

 

Tjallinigii takes the mountains jersey

While Cannondale took the initiative in the peloton with Simon Clarke, the front quartet contested the KOM sprint and it was local hero Tjallingii who launched a long sprint. Amezqueta tried to respond but was no match to the Dutchman who easily beat the Spaniard to take the mountains jersey. Berlato was third across the line.

 

With 50km to go, the gap was down to 2 minutes but things calmed down as the peloton went through a small forest and this allowed the gap to go out to 2.30 while Ramunas Navardauskas, Clarke and Alberto Bettiol set the pace for Cannondale.

 

Cannondale in control

Demare suffered some kind of bad luck which forced him to chase hard with two of his teammates as the peloton entered the final 45km. He made it back just before the riders entered the circuit with 39km to go when Cannondale had reduced the gap to just 1.50.

 

The escapees upped the pace and even though Bettiol, Clarke and Navardauskas continued to ride on the front, the gap stayed at around 1.45 for several kilometres. As they entered Arnhem, they stopped their effort and instead Astana, Trek, Giant-Alpecin and Katusha lined out their troops on the front. That allowed the gap to go out to 2.00 with 30km to go.

 

The peloton almost came to a standstill and while Laurent Didier, Tom Stamsnijder, Rory Sutherland, Hoe Dombrowski and Vegard Stake Laengen were lined out on the front, they crossed the finish line for the first time 2.27 behind the escapees.  The gap even went out to almost three minutes but in the end, a late chase effort ensured that Kittel made it two in a row.