Team Sky started on the offensive in yesterday's stage of the Giro del Trentino but ended up as the team to take main responsibility for the chase. Afterwards, the team admitted that the race had been tougher than expected.

With both Bradley Wiggins and stage 2 winner Kanstantsin Siutsou well-placed on GC, the Sky team started yesterday's stage in the Giro del Trentino with the objective of keeping their options open ahead of today's summit finish in the Italian race while also giving the team's domestiques a chance to go for personal glory on a day that seemed to be an easy one for the GC riders and a perfect opportunity for a breakaway.

Dario Cataldo seized his chance and escaped with Fabio Felline (Androni) and the duo managed to build up a gap of almost 6 minutes. However, the pace in the peloton increased dramatically on the day's first climb and they were joined by 9 riders on the steep slopes to form a dangerous 11-rider break.

With rival teams Lampre and Astana both represented by 2 riders in the move, Sky was uncomfortable to let the gap grow too much. Despite Cataldo's presence in the move, the team set a hard tempo in the peloton to keep the advantage around the 1.30 mark. Later they got some assistance from the Cannondale, Vini Fantini, Colombia and Ag2r teams but it was a hard effort to keep control of such a large break in the difficult terrain.

Cataldo paid for his earlier effort and were dropped from the front group on the penultimate climb and Ivan Santaromita (BMC) later emerged as stage winner. However, the peloton only lost 1.23 and Sky kept their GC options open.

Sports director Marcus Ljungqvist admitted that it had been a harder day than expected.

“It was a tactical day and also a really hard day," he said. "Everyone really raced from kilometre zero so it ended up being tougher than a lot of people expected. We wanted to try and keep things controlled and keep the time to the break down a bit. Christian (Knees, ed.) and Xabi (Zandio, ed.) did a great job of doing that and protecting Brad (Wiggins, ed.) and Kosta (Siutsou, ed.)."

Another factor in the day's hardness was the sudden arrival of the Italian spring.

“It was also really hot out there," Ljungqvist said. "One of the first really hot days we’ve had this year. The guys did a good job and then they could ease off a bit later on and our lead pair were comfortable at the end."

The team now faces a final challenge in today's last stage, a hard summit finish on the Sega di Ala climb. Siutsou is 2nd overall and Wiggins is third but they still trail overall leader Bouet by 3.19 and 3.48 respectively, and they will have to put the Frenchman under pressure if they are to take home the win. The opening part of the stage is, however, considerably easier than yesterday's rugged terrain and Ljungqvist expects it to be easier to keep control of the race.

“The race all comes down to tomorrow," he said. "It should be an easier day in terms of things being controlled but then at the end it will be game on!”

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