Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) won the rain-soaked third stage of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali to Cesena after attacking on the last climb of the 142.1km stage.
Vine finished 26 seconds ahead of the USA's Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers) and Simone Velasco (XDS Astana) to take his first victory of the 2025 season.
Despite his victory, Vine is not the new overall race leader after the Australian lost more than six minutes on stage 2 but he was still happy.
"It's really amazing to get a win on the board. It's my first win in Italy which is pretty special and the first since my son was born so it's really motivating having him and my wife cheering at home," he said.
"The team is on a great wave at the moment and I'm delighted to add to it and get my name on that list of victories, it's really special."
Stage 2 winner Paul Double (Jayco-AlUla) was not part of the chase group and so lost the race leader's jersey to Sheffield. He now leads Britain's Ben Tulett (Visma-Lease a Bike) by three seconds, with Velasco third overall at just four seconds.
"It was even colder than we expected, but we managed it quite well," Sheffield said, who also took the points jersey, the best young rider's jersey and so a huge amount of the famous Coppi & Bartali mortadella prizes.
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"It's nice to take the lead going into the next few days. I'm looking forward to wearing the leader's jersey, and hopefully, we can defend it."
The peloton racing under the rain at stage 3 of Coppi e Bartali (Image credit: Getty Images)
The riders awoke to rain on Thursday morning, and everyone knew they would face another day in rain capes.
Marcel Camprubí (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team), Alexander Konychev (Team Vorarlberg), and Pascal Eenkhoorn (Soudal Quick-Step) formed the early break of the day. Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) joined them, and they pushed out their lead to over three minutes after 50km of racing.
Pascal Eenkhoorn (Soudal Quick-Step) jumps ahead of his breakaway companions to go solo at stage 3 of Coppi e Bartali (Image credit: Getty Images)
The Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies picked up the chase as the riders began the first Sorrivoli circuit at half distance.
The steep climb was covered three times, and Eenkhoorn hit out alone but was caught on the next time over the summit after 16km.
Magnus Sheffield and Simone Velasco sprint for second and third (Image credit: Getty Images)
UAE Emirates XRG led the peloton, and Vine was there when Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal Quick-Step) attacked. They opened a ga,p but the reduced group refused to let them go.
On the last Diolaguardia above Cesena, on the roads where Marco Pantani once trained, Vine attacked Vansevenant to try to win alone.
Vine's gap was never more than 30 seconds, but his time trialing skills allowed him to stay away and win, as Sheffield and Velasco sprinted from the reduced group for second and third on the day.
Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
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What started as a challenge to see if I could complete gravel's biggest race with a training plan based almost completely indoors turned into a battle for survival as the mud piled up and storm clouds rolled in
