Second road stage, second breakaway. Team Colombia-Coldeportes’ Carlos Julian Quintero is giving a plain show of his determination early in this Tirreno-Adriatico, and after 130 km on the attack on Thursday, he did not hesitate a second to move away of the bunch again at the start of stage 3, Cascina-Arezzo of 203 km. The stage win went to Belgian Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), the fastest up the final ramp in Arezzo’s beautiful city center, ahead of Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep). Van Avermaet is also the new overall leader.

After grazing the best climber’s jersey yesterday, Quintero found himself with green jersey Danilo Wyss (BMC) again, this time along with Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF), Chad Haga (Giant-Shimano) and Rick Flens (LottoNL-Jumbo). After gaining over 15 minutes early on, Tinkoff-Saxo brought the pack back within striking distance, bringing the gap under 3 minutes when the break broke into the final circuit, with 55 km to go. The escape was finally reeled in with 15 km to go, and the frantic pace inside downtown Arezzo did not allow any other attempt until Van Avermaet’s strenght display on the final drag. Miguel Angel Rubiano, 23rd, was the best Colombia-Coldeportes rider on the day.

In the first part of the race, two categorized climbs staged the predictable clash between Wyss and Quintero, but the Swiss got the better in both cases. Anyway, the Colombian has no intention to give up: “As soon as I saw Wyss accelerate, I followed him, and tried to put him on the back foot on both climbs. Unfortunately, both the KOM were located on false flat sections, and he is a way faster sprinter than I am. I am not giving up though: if he wants that jersey, he will need to fight for it.”

Tomorrow the game gets harder with stage 4, the longest of the race, 236 km on the Apennines between Indicatore and Castelraimondo: a hard, up-and-down stage, with two passages on the Crispiero climb in the finale likely to prove testing for the riders after 200 km on saddle.