Giro d'Italia - Stage 3

It is still early but Peter Sagan needs to pick up his game pretty soon
or else he will have a huge whole to dig out of once the mountains hit.



No chance for the sprinters at the checkpoint today,
as a breakaway of 6 take all the points today.



But they weren't going to spoil the finish as FDJ, Garmin, GreenEdge
do all the work to bring it all back with 8kms to go.



Two major trains control the front with Garmin on the left and FDJ on the right. Sagan goes with the scouting reports and quickly takes Farrar wheel, but on the other side of the road the wearing the red points jersey on loan Francisco Ventoso goes with his gut and takes Hutarovich wheel.



Then all of a sudden a third train rips up the far leftside of the road powered by GreenEdge carring their man Goss to the front, on his wheel is Gerald Ciolek.



Goss gets a perfect leadout and Ventoso sees it. This quickly leads to him jumping off the FDJ train to catch Goss. And now behind riders without a train mixing into the action. Despite the movement around Farrar keeps to his leadout and kicks with 600 meters to go, Sagan tries to hold on for the ride.



But it wasn't enough as Goss had a picture perfect sprint to the line. Ventoso with a nice scramble to take 2nd and take full ownership of the red points jersey. 3rd to Tyler Farrar, and 4th Danilo Napolitano who did everything by himself today without the help of a leadout. Peter Sagan grabs a top 5 but surely needs to do better as he sits 20 points behind Ventoso for the red jersey.

Giro d'Italia - Stage 5

No points available during the TTT we took the day off from covering Sagan.
But below you can see how that effected the overall standings.

This flat stage is a little bit different with a small hilly coming with 20kms to go. Many suggest that it won't play that much of a difference
but we shall wait and see.



To make things even more interesting rain is expected to fall throughout the entire day creating wet roads and wet riders.



The sprint point will go unnoticed as the breakaway takes all the points.



And the climb doesn't do much either as the peloton stays intact.
The breakaway hovers around a minute.



Maarten Wynants gives a valiant effort but
today was always going to be a bunch sprint finish.



The trains line up with GreenEdge on the left and Garmin on the right.
Sagan follows Goss instead of Farrar today. But more importantly is on the back of wheel of Francisco Ventoso, who he needs to keep close.



And it looks like the right decision to take the GreenEdge train
as Garmin implodes on the right for no reason,
Farrar is quickly falling out of the points race.



Goss makes a mess out of his leadout and allows Sacha Modolo, Francisco Ventoso, and Peter Sagan to fly by through the middle.



Ventoso makes his move around Modolo with 400 meters to go.
Sagan is trying his best to keep on Ventoso's wheel.



What a finish, Ventoso with a final burst of speed beats Modolo on the line.



Sagan gets his best finish so far with a 3rd after a very tight battle.
So he will give in another 9 points to Ventoso
but should get some back with a tough hilly stage tomorrow.



The sprint was so fast that a huge gap opened at the back of the peloton,
the biggest name losing time is Italian favourite Cunego.

Giro d'Italia - Stage 6

Points are up for grabs as Sagan should be the only sprinter
to get over the climbs. But just how many points can he get back?



It's a small 6 man breakaway that gets clear today.



Liquigas does some of the pace making as the peloton splits and
reconnects throughout the stage. Sagan is well placed at the front.



The breakaway is held right around 5 minutes as they reach the first KoM.



Liquigas are putting the pressure on early by sending
GC rider Nibali on the attack up the second KoM climb.



Nibali catches the breakaway at the top,
the peloton doesn't seem worried as there is still half the stage to go.



And Nibali evens leads them over the next climb a few kilometers later.



The peloton is struggling to organize as it is down to 25 riders.
All the sprinters, expect for Sagan, have been dropped.



Nibali rides away from the breakaway and at the sprint point has a huge lead! The remaining breakaway riders take the rest of the sprint points,
so Sagan will have to wait for the finish.



7 minutes is Nibali's lead over the peloton at the last KoM!
He could be pulling on pink!



But the peloton does pick up the pace as they catch the orginal breakaway and it catches Sagan off guard. He gets dropped in 17th position, sprint points are only awarded for top 15 so Sagan has some work to do.



Damiano Cunego and Thomas De Gendt
make their move with 25kms to go.



But the chasers bring them back with 16kms to go.
Will they slow down to allow Sagan back on? Nibali is still 4'25" up the road.



Sagan finds himself in the 2nd chase group
which best position would be 14th.



Liquigas might be disappointed in Sagan's effort but it's cheers all around for Nibali, an outstanding solo victory! Will he get the Pink jersey as well?



He will! Damiano Cunego leads Giovanni Visconti, Rigoberto Uran,
and Thomas De Gendt to the line 2'06" after Nibali.



The group Sagan missed out on takes the next 8 spots,
meaning Sagan will be sprinting for 14th and just 2 points.



And he does get 14th by winning the sprint easily.
One can only wonder what would have happened if
he didn't get dropped from the first chase group.