Petacchi jets to stage win in Oristano

Italy's Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Farnese Vini) won the third stage of the Giro di Sardegna on Thursday after his teammates did a perfect job of chasing down a dangerous five-rider breakaway and controlling the bunch in the finale of the hilly stage.

The veteran sprinter got another excellent lead-out from new last man Danilo Hondo to beat Enrico Rossi (Ceramica Flaminia) and Jacopo Guarnieri (Liquigas-Doimo) in Oristano, on the west coast of Sardinia.

Stage two winner Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas-Doimo) finished safely in the bunch despite a late crash and kept the overall race lead with two stages remaining of the Italian race. Chris Horner (Radioshack) remains second overall at four seconds and France's Thomas Voeckler (BBox Bouygues Telecom) is third at six seconds. Janez Brajkovic (Radioshack) is fourth and leads a group of four riders at 10 seconds.

Petacchi was forced to miss the Trofeo Laigueglia last Saturday because of a virus and was in doubt for the Giro di Sardegna. But he looked back to his best as he took his fourth win of the 2010 season. He won two stages at the Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria and the GP degli Etruschi at the start of February.

"I started off the season really well and I haven't felt that good for a few years. Then I got ill and for two days, I was really ill," Petacchi told La Gazzetta dello Sport after his win.

"I'm slowly getting better now and started to feel ok last night. I suffered during the stage though, because it was one of the hardest stages of the race with 2500 metres of climbing.

"I have to thank my teammates because they put their faith in me. I wasn't sure if I could go for the sprint and wanted the team to work for Hondo. But they told me to try and worked hard for me. Spezialetti and Righi did a lot of the early work with the Liquigas and Diquigiovanni teams.

"In the finale Mori and Gavazzi gave me a hand, then in the last three kilometres, Da Dalto, Bernucci and Hondo led me out. Hondo was good again, stopping the other teams from anticipating the sprint. I'm just glad I could pay them back for their hard work. I'm definitely not fully recovered but this win boosts my morale."

The stage was shaped by a five-rider break, that included former Tour de France yellow jersey wearer Michael Rasmussen (Miche), Giairo Ermeti (De Rosa-Stac Plastic), David Gutierrez (Footon-Servetto), Jose Sarmiento (Acqua& Sapone) and Evgeni Petrov (Katusha).

Liquigas-Doimo was forced to chase the break because Petrov was only 35 seconds behind Kreuziger in the overall standings. Fortunately the stage's hilly profile also took its toll and only Ermeti and Gutierrez were left out front after 125km of racing. They were carefully reeled in six kilometres from the finish thanks to Lampre also doing a lot of work on the front and Petacchi paid his teammates back for their efforts with yet another win.

The Giro di Sardegna continues on Friday with the hilly 181km fourth stage from Carbonia to Iglesia. The race ends on Saturday with the final stage from Sant' Antico to Cagliari. On Sunday the riders will complete in the one-day Sassari-Olbia race.