The third stage of the Giro del Trentino could be the first real important stage for the GC, even though the previous ones were also very interesting stages. Carrara, Pedraza and Taaramae are rated as the big 3 favorites for today's stage but neither of them showed a real interested for the GC yesterday
There were 7 riders in today's breakaway: Kunitski, Martinez, Caruso, Forster, Veikkanen and De Ketele
We had a very nice battle for the first and the only intermediate sprint of the day as in the breakaway were 2 good sprinters: Forster and Martinez. The last one got it for only a few centimeters
Even though 2 of the strongest teams, Energie Diesel and Olympus AirAsia, are leading the pack today the escapes got a maximum advantage of over 7 minutes
But that started to go down as they reached the first and the hardest climb of the day. There Forster also lost the contact with the other escapes as he was clearly the weakest climber in the group
Behind them we had a quite surprise attack from Bosisio and Ghisalberti
Bertagnolli and Diniz are also coming behind them
But Diniz is clearly not as strong as the other 3 and he can't keep it up with them for too long
The other 3 soon caught Forster and left him behind
Forster is clearly not in a good mood at the moment as he can't even keep it up with Diniz
Martinez is first at the top but it will be really hard for him to get the KoM jersey from Roojakkers today
The chasers lead by Ghisalberti are already less than 1 minute behind the escapes
Diniz is somewhere between the chasing group and the pack but he clearly won't be able to rejoin Ghisalberti, Bosisio and Bertagnolli
The pack lead by the same teams, AirAsia and Energie Diesel is 3 minutes behind the escapes
1 kilometer before the next summit, the chasers managed to join the escapes in the leading group
Ghisalberti looked to be the strongest on that climb and he even won it, followed by Bertagnolli and Kunitski
It looked like Bertagnolli and Ghisalberti managed to leave Bosisio behind there
But the Vespa rider helped a little bit by Veikkanen and even Caruso managed to rejoin
While behind them, Diniz is almost brought back in the back. His adventure has ended
This became quite seriously and now 4 Energie Diesel rider including the team - leader Mercado are working hard at the front of the pack to bring to attackers back
The good news for them could be as they started to lose the help from the escapes as those started to lost the contact with the group. The first one was Caruso
He was closely followed by Veikkanen and Kunitski
It seems that the Energie Diesel riders are getting tired and with 27 km before the finish Nicacio makes an clearly unexpected attack
But after less than 1 kilometer he was brought back in the pack. Not a good move from the GC leader
Only 2 escapes, De Ketele and Martinez, are now in front with Ghisalberti, Bertagnolli and Bosisio, but their advantage over the pack is only of one minute
Quinziato got away from the pack on that long donwhill right before the last climb of the day and he is now somewhere between the leading group and the bunch
He manages to join the group inside the last 10 km but the pack is right behind them
They were all caught as soon as the climb started. The only one that managed to survive a little bit was Bosisio but he didn't stay in front for more than 2 km
Then Galparsoro made his move
He was followed by a lot of riders, including Lloret, Larsson, Nicacio, Gustov and Nocentini
Lloret and Nocentini proved to be the strongest from the attackers there and the passed the summit together with somewhere around 20 seconds advantage over the next group
Nicacio is leading the chase behind them but he is in real danger to lost the leader's jersey
He is really fast on the downhill and only Larsson and Gustov are able to keep it up with him but he can't get any closer to the leaders
Lloret is leading the sprint but that clearly isn't the best position
And with 500 meter before the finish Nocentini is very close to take the lead
He doesn't just take the lead, he also wins the third stage of Giro del Trentino. With the bonifications he has now the same time as Lloret, but who will get the jersey if they will manage to win enough time on Nicacio?
Nicacio's group comes 26 later and the Brazilian also loses the bonifications for the third place as he was beaten in the sprint by Larsson. With the time lost there, Nicacio will lose the leader's jersey.
Lloret is the new leader probably thanks mainly to his better performance in the opening TT, compared with Nocentini
