Yesterday Lampre-Merida’s Filippo Pozzato aimed for victory on his hometown roads in the 17th stage of the Giro d'Italia.

He struggled, he received excellent support from his team and he showed all his qualities, but at the end of the day Visconti (Movistar) was stronger and so the rider from Sicily could obtain his second victory in this year’s Giro while Pozzato had to settle for fourth behind Navardauskas (Garmin-Sharp) and Mezgec (Argos-Shimano).

After missing out on his target for the day Pozzato described the final kilometres: "I asked the team to approach the final climb at a regular but quite intense pace, in order to make an elimination of the pure sprinters. We got to our target and I thank Scarponi and Niemiec for their work for they were great! Anyway, Visconti performed an amazing action, my compliments to him: when he attacked, I was at my maximum and I did not want to ask Michele or Przemyslaw to spend too much energy, since tomorrow [Thursday] they're facing a very important time trial.”

“I also tried to obtain second place in the pink jersey group sprint, but to avoid a collision with another rider I was forced to brake. Still, I thank the team for having given me the freedom to try to get to a top result.”

Ahead of Thursday's individual time trial Pozzato lies 120th overall, 2:39'11" behind race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana).