Van Vleuten claims a second stage win at Giro Rosa

Annemiek van Vleuten won the third stage in the Giro Rosa. The Rabo-Liv rider attacked the breakaway in the last kilometre to finish solo. Alé-Cipollini’s Elena Berlato finished second in front of Japanese champion Mayuko Hagiwara of Wiggle-Honda. Marianne Vos finished fifth and keeps the pink leader’s jersey.

“It was kind of an unexpected victory,” Van Vleuten told Cyclingnews. “This was not really the tactics we had discussed before but in the end it was an ideal scenario.”

Stage three in the Giro Rosa was the first with an uphill finish. The course was only flat in the first kilometres out of Caserta, the location of Friday’s prologue. The finish climb to San Donato Val di Comino in the province of Lazio rounded off the 125.3km stage.

Just after midday, 147 riders took the start with Vos in the pink jersey. The peloton faced another hot day with temperatures rising to 33 degrees. Alé-Cipollini’s Martha Tagliaferro won the intermediate sprint after 17.5km.

A large breakaway took off after one hour of racing. Prologue winner, Van Vleuten and stage 2 winner Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle-Honda) but also Hitec Product's Julie Leth, Orica-AIS Valentina Scandolara, Doris Schweizer (Astana-BePink) and Elena Berlato (Alé-Cipollini) were among the 15 riders.

Rabo-Liv let the pacing to other teams because they had Van Vleuten in the break. the 15 leaders got a maximum lead of 1:35. Several riders dropped from the breakaway as the first serious climb came up and the attacks started.

The finish climb to San Donato Val di Comino was four kilometres long at five to six per cent average. Van Vleuten, Berlato, Schweizer and Japanese champion Hagiwara, who had bridged across from the peloton on her own, were the last four riders left up front but the gap was less than half a minute at the foot of the climb.

Van Vleuten attacked the breakaway she had been part of for 80km in the final kilometre of the race.

The Dutch time trial champion, who told Cyclingnews after the prologue that it was her job to work in the remainder of the Giro Rosa, won the stage. Elena Berlato finished at ten seconds with Japanese champion Hagiwara another six seconds back.

“It was very tense. I was the highest ranked rider in the breakaway but they attacked a lot, especially in the final 20 kilometres. I thought, can I counter these attacks? I thought they would come from behind, like Hagiwara had. We knew nothing about our time gap in the final so it was very tense.”

Sports director Koos Moerenhout and his Rabo-Liv squad have now won three of the first four stages in Italy. “Yeah things are going well,” he told Cyclingnews. “We have three captains [Vos, Van der Breggen and Ferrand-Prevot] and we have Annemiek in great shape. The tactics were to get Anna [Van der Breggen] a bit higher up the overall but the breakaway went after 45 minutes. Annemiek was there so we didn’t work in the peloton, only in the beginning to canvas who else was up front. We left it to the others teams. And with Annemiek in this shape, you know she can win the stage,” he concluded happily.

The fourth stage is a long stretch alongside the sea to Jesi over 118km. A climb at less than ten kilometres from the finish is the only obstacle on the course. Vos starts her third day in pink.

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