Giro d'Italia: Tim Merlier claims first sprint stage as Pogačar's late attack fails

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Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) won the first sprint stage of the Giro d’Italia, beating Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) to the finish line of stage 3 in Fossano after a late attack led by race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) was caught just 300 metres from the line.

Pogačar, who attacked with Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and Mikkel Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost) with 3km to go, looked set to add a second stage win in three days to his collection.

However, the charging peloton, led by the sprinters and lead-out men behind, managed to bring the move back within sight of the line, setting up a last-minute hectic sprint finish.

Honoré had led the way in the late three-man attack, jumping out of the peloton on the late, unclassified hill 3km from the finish. The Dane drew out GC favourite Pogačar and his main rival Thomas in the process, with the man in the maglia rosa taking over at the front and dropping Honoré inside the final 2km.

Thomas hung on to Pogačar’s wheel as the peloton, led by Lidl-Trek, fought to bring the pair back, only doing so well inside the final kilometre on the flat run to the line.

The US team was joined by Polti-Kometa and Soudal-QuickStep in setting up the final sprint, though it was Tobias Lund Andresen (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Alberto Dainese (Tudor) who led out the dash for the line.

Merlier was in prime position behind and hit the wind at just the right time to come through and take the second Giro stage win of his career. Milan, a millisecond back, came home in second as Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) beat Jenthe Biermans (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) to take third place.

While Pogačar and Thomas didn’t make their move stick all the way to the finish and grab those extra seconds to go further clear at the top of the GC standings, the pair did manage to subtract a handful of bonus seconds from their totals.

The day’s final intermediate sprint, coming 22km from the line, saw Ben Swift hold off Pogačar to deny the Slovenian three bonus seconds. Instead, he’d have to settle for two as Thomas crossed the line for third place and a single bonus second.

As a result, Pogačar extends his overall race lead to 46 seconds over Thomas, who himself moves one clear of Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) as the Colombian now lies 47 seconds off the lead.

How it unfolded

The third stage of the Giro d’Italia would see the peloton tackle the first sprinter-friendly stage of the race, heading 166km south-west across Piemonte from Novara to Fossano.

After racing over six classified climbs during the opening two stages, Monday’s stage would bring just one hill – the fourth-category climb at Lu after 59km – though two small unclassified hills in the final kilometres of the day could make things tricky for the sprinters.

It was a quiet start to the stage as no big battle over the breakaway materialised in the opening kilometres. In fact, it would be almost 50km before a rider ventured out as the peloton, led by Alpecin-Deceuninck and Intermarché-Wanty, led the pacemaking at a 40kph average.

Intermarché-Wanty rider Lilian Calmejane was the first man to go, heading off with a move a handful of kilometres before Lu. He’d soon be joined by Davide Ballerini (Astana Qazaqstan).

The Frenchman led the way over the top of the climb for a maximum of three points before dropping back and leaving Ballerini out front alone. The Italian would keep going until just past the 100km to go marker, at which point it was all back together once again.

The next action would come 20km later on the way to the day’s first intermediate sprint at Masio. There, a group of around 25 sprinters and lead-out men had split off the front of the peloton, before Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) led across the line to take 12 points towards the points classification.

He’d do the same again at the Intergiro sprint with 67km to go, beating Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) across the line for another 12 points in both Intergiro and points classifications.

Behind the leading sprint group, it was Movistar and Polti-Kometa who led the chase, bringing the gap under the minute mark and causing some fractures in the larger peloton as they sought to bring things back together once more.

Most of the major GC names made the right side of the split, with only Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease A Bike) missing out, though he’d make it back with the help of his teammates at 48km to go.

The lead group continued to push on at 30 seconds up the road. However, the group knocked off the pace before long, ending the breakaway move with 44km left to run as the peloton became one once more.

At that point, one final rise in the road and another intermediate sprint lay between the peloton and the finish at Cherasco at 22km out. There’d be no sprint points on offer, but rather three, two and one seconds towards the general classification.

Race leader Tadej Pogačar jumped from the peloton in a bid to extend his overall lead and he’d end up doing so, though Ben Swift played an interfering role on behalf of his Ineos Grenadiers leader Geraint Thomas to lead across the line.

In the end, Pogačar would have to settle for two seconds as Thomas crossed the line in third place with one, ceding another second to his GC rival.

From there a fast run towards the finish led by the sprinter’s squads would only be disrupted by some rain and a possible attack at the late unclassified hill in Fossano.

As ever, the GC men and sprinters fought to stay in prime position at the front until the 3km to go mark, though that late hill proved too tempting for the biggest names in the pink jersey battle as Pogačar and Thomas jumped with Honoré.

It wouldn’t be long before the race leader took over on the front, powering forward on the flat and taking only Thomas with him towards the line. But even the might of the two top contenders in the race wouldn’t deny the sprint specialists, and so it was Merlier who reaped the rewards and celebrated the win on stage 3.

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