After our chastening day yesterday, we are all placed dreadfully in the General Classification, all over two minutes down, so at last the management has relented and allowed us free rides, although still keeping an eye out for Wiggins to make sure his Giro d’Italia preparation is going well.
It was a long day today - 220km of racing, and so we join the action at the foot of the Passo Lavaze, the only col before the finish at Vetriolo Terme. There are two men out front, Pomoshnikov of RusVelo and Westra of Vacansoleil, and they have a gap of 10 minutes back to the main field.
There was not much action on the climb, apart from a bit of pacing from Katusha to narrow the gap down to about 7 minutes. However, as we had been told by the team management that we were allowed a free role today, Joe [Dombrowski] and I hatched a plan. We rode off the front together, despite the enormous distance to the finish (I’m in his wheel) and quickly gained a minute’s lead.
It turned out other teams had similar ideas, as Niemiec and de Clercq attacked near the top of the climb. They too quickly gained time on the sluggish peloton, and by the time we started to fly down the descent we had almost two minutes advantage over them, who held a further minute over the peloton.
As I reached the foot of the descent I realised I'd dropped Dombo! I was now exactly halfway between the two leaders and the peloton, 3 and a half minutes both ways.
As the two of us rejoined near the start of the difficult up-and-down section that lasted until the final ascent, we heard that Niemiec and de Clercq had been brought back! The peloton was accelerating!
Unfortunately, with just under 50km to go, Joe told me he no longer had the legs to continue at my speed (he had been doing a large amount of the work after all) and had decided to drop back to the main field as he was not feeling too great. I thanked him profusely for his work, and carried on.
However, by the time I made the juncture to the two leaders, the gap to the peloton was a mere 1'17'' with still more than 20km to go. Behind me, the attacks were starting to come!
As the race reached the climb, the gap had surprisingly not come down by that much, but that was all about to change as Michele Scarponi launched a huge attack!
He soon bridged up to the lead group, with me on the front, and we had 50 seconds advantage on a group of 4 (Pirazzi, de Clercq, Rebellin, Duarte) who had a further 35 seconds on the 'peloton' - a mere 44 riders at this point.
Soon, as the gradient suddenly skyrocketed, everyone was within one helicopter shot. Scarponi was leading, with myself and Pomoshnikov 16 seconds behind, about to be absorbed into the group behind which was not very far behind at all, which in turn was only 25 seconds ahead of the peloton, still with Wiggins, Kiryienka and Siutsou representing us.
Cadel Evans went flying past me, in pursuit of Scarponi, and everyone (except Scarponi that is) was brought back together.
As I started to recede backwards faster than a terrified deer runs away from a cheetah, Kiryienka launched an attack with 5km to go.
Scarponi was making massive inroads (he is on the top road) but Kiryienka, along with Wiggins and Fuglsang were slowly but surely pulling away, towards Evans.
Up ahead Evans had unexpectedly managed to close the gap to Scarponi, and it would be a two-way sprint!
A superb victory for Cadel Evans! No celebration as he is obviously intent on getting as many seconds on Scarponi as possible!
A minute later, Kiryienka put in an impressive performance to easily outsprint Fuglsang, and Wiggins who had slightly dropped off the back of the group.
Quite a while later, I pushed myself over the line, completely exhausted and feeling bitterly disappointed that my efforts had not resulted in something more spectacular.
First of all, many apologies for the extended break - a combination of work and watching the Winter Olympics rather contributed to me not having enough time to play PCM
Thanks to those who are supporting (particularly Ian, sutty and Shonak), sorry about the rather inconsistent pace.
Will hopefully have the fourth stage up fairly soon.
Although today's stage is rated hilly, it could cause some trouble amongst the main contenders, and the last climb of the day is perfectly positioned for an attack. Here we see me and Ian Boswell doing some pacing as the race rather meanders along.
Nothing at all happened until we reached the foot of the small but steep 3rd category climb of Daone, where Cadel Evans put in an attack. We were already pacing hard at the front, and tried to bring him back.
He kept on going, and after cresting the summit he had attained a big gap - Scarponi and Trofimov were 25 seconds behind him, they too having launched good attacks, and they were already a further minute ahead of the peloton.
An intense few final kilometres followed, but it was Rutkiewicz of CCC who triumphed from the break, despite an onrushing Evans a victory for them always looked likely.
Evans followed 52 seconds later, and what remained of the bunch, including all Sky riders, 30 seconds after that.
Some nice reports here. Chambula is improving by every race, but my opinion is that he has no space for something big in Sky with Porte, Froome , Wiggins, Henao, Uran, Kiriyenka , Sitsou, Lopez, Cataldo, Kennaugh in his team. He just can't get more than Team-mates role, but well...
Kevin Hulsmans (Vini Fantini - Selle Italia)
but then again, I haven't commented for ages/at all 
