Santaromita wins in Condino

Ivan Santaromita (BMC) claimed the first road race victory of his professional career when he out-sprinted Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) and Michele Scarponi (Lampre-Merida) to win stage 3 of the Giro del Trentino in Condino, while Maxime Bouet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) retained the overall lead.

Santaromita, Tiralongo and Scarponi had been part of the day’s early break, which had formed on the climb of Fai della Paganella and dangled clear of the peloton over the rolling terrain that followed. Scarponi’s forcing on the final climb of the Daone shattered the break’s unity but first Tiralongo and then Santaromita fought their way back up to the Lampre man’s wheel as he crested the summit with 16km still to race.

The trio had a lead of two minutes at that point, and in spite of some mild disagreement between Tiralongo and Scarponi over whose responsibility it was to drive the pace on the shallow, open descent, they reached the finale in Condino with their lead largely intact.

In the finishing straight, Scarponi managed to manoeuvre himself to the back of the group, and Tiralongo was forced to lead out the sprint. The Sicilian launched his effort a shade over 200 metres from the line, but Santaromita held his nerve and coolly passed him in sight of the finish to take his first win since he claimed the general classification of the Settimana Coppi e Bartali in 2010.

“This morning in the team meeting, Fabio Baldato and Cadel Evans told me that I had via libera to go with the break,” Santaromita said afterwards. “Thankfully, I managed to hold on to the wheels on the last climb and then I was able to win the sprint. Now, I want to go and support a great Cadel Evans at the Giro d’Italia.”

The pink jersey group of Maxime Bouet came home 1:23 down and contained Giro d’Italia contenders Bradley Wiggins (Sky), Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), Cadel Evans (BMC) and Ivan Basso (Cannondale), although there was one notable absentee – Bouet’s team leader Domenico Pozzovivo. The diminutive climber from the Basilicata region was involved in a crash after just 7 kilometres and abandoned the race with an elbow injury.

Bouet maintains a lead of 3:19 over Sky’s Kanstantin Siutsou and 3:48 over Wiggins ahead of Friday’s final stage, while Nibali lies at 3:57 and the in-form Mauro Santambrogio (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia) at 4:06. Although the stage features a demanding summit finish at Sega di Ala, Bouet took heart from his performance on the third-category Daone in the finale of stage 3.

“It was a good day for me because Sky and Vini Fantini did a lot of the work and I was able to stay in the group,” Bouet said. “It was very fast on the last climb but I felt better today on the climb than I did yesterday.”

How it unfolded

Dario Cataldo (Sky) and Fabio Felline (Androni-Venezuela) zipped off the front in the opening kilometres and quickly built up a lead of over two minutes before Vini Fantini-Selle Italia set about trying to peg them back.

On the climb of Fai della Paganella, first Paolo Tiralongo and then Michele Scarponi sparked two counter attacks that caught up to the leaders and swelled the break to eleven riders: Tiralongo, Tanel Kangert (Astana), Santaromita, Scarponi, Kristijan Durasek (Lampre-Merida), José C Sarmiento Tunarrosa (Cannondale), Cataldo, Stefano Locatelli (Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox), Felline, Emanuele Sella (Androni-Venezuela) and Antonio Piedra Perez (Caja Rural).

The eleven had a margin of 30 seconds over the peloton when Scarponi led them over the summit and they stretched that out to 1:30 on the descent. Sky and Cannondale initially kept tabs on the move but when they relented, the gap rose to 3:30 with 50km still to go. Vini Fantini-Selle Italia and NetApp-Endura took up responsibility for the chase at that point and their pursuit brought the break’s advantage down to two minutes as they hit the short, sharp climb of the Daone.

Up front, Scarponi looked to shed himself of his company, but Tiralongo and Santaromita managed to stay in contact over the summit. Back in the main peloton, Mauro Santambrogio (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia) launched a searing attack but when Fredrik Kessikoff (Astana) reeled him in on behalf of Nibali, détente reigned in the pink jersey group.

Fabio Duarte (Colombia) made a vain attempt to bridge up to the leaders on the long drop to the finish, but it was too little, too late, and the day belonged to Ivan Santaromita.

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