After the sprint success in the opening stage, the Dane won in Valona, in the stage that closes the Grande Partenza. Tomorrow is the first rest day.
Mads Pedersen’s wind is still blowing on the Giro d’Italia and the pink jersey will return to Italy on his shoulders. After the opening victory in the narrow sprint in Tirana ahead of Van Aert, today he dominated the third stage on the Valona seafront: a compact group sprint at the end of a day with 2,800 meters of elevation gain, ahead of Strong, Aular, Zambanini and Oldani. Thanks to the 10″ bonus, he returns to the pink jersey, snatching it from Roglic who was ahead of him by 1″. Tomorrow the Giro observes the first of three rest days, necessary to make the transfer to Italy. The race will start again on Tuesday with the fourth stage, the first in Italy: Alberobello (Pietramadre)-Lecce, 189 kilometers, without any difficulty. There will be a final circuit of 12 km in Lecce, to be repeated once, and another sprint is expected in which Pedersen can try to win in the pink jersey.
At 29 years old, Mads is experiencing a golden spring, with a hat-trick at Ghent-Wevelgem, second place at the Tour of Flanders and third at Paris-Roubaix (held back by a puncture while he was leading), on the podium again with Pogacar and Van der Poel. And once again he has to thank his teammates. if Ciccone had been decisive in Friday’s stage for the suffocating pace on the climb that had his rivals on the ropes, today the Abruzzese perfectly managed the pace on the 11 km climb at an average 7% that could have been dangerous for the Dane, and he outdid himself until the last kilometer, at the head of the group as Pedersen’s most faithful trailblazer. Thus ended the Grande Partenza of the 108th Giro in Albania, which welcomed the pink race with enthusiasm and curiosity. It was the fifteenth time, in 116 years, that the Giro started from abroad, starting in 1965 in San Marino, and this testifies to the increasingly international level of the race.
1 Mads PEDERSEN LIDL-TREK 7:42:10 0:00
2 Primož ROGLIČ RED BULL – BORA – HANSGROHE 7:42:19 0:09
3 Mathias VACEK LIDL-TREK 7:42:24 0:14
