Tour of the Alps: Gianni Moscon wins stage 3

Image 1 of 30

Gianni Moscon (Ineos Grenadiers) took his second stage win in three days at the Tour of the Alps, beating Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a sprint to the line in Naturno after the pair had been part of a late attack move from the early breakaway. 

Michael Storer (Team DSM) completed the podium, a second further back.

The Italian won the two-up sprint for the line after the pair emerged the strongest from a four-man group who broke away on the day's final climb, 22 kilometres from the finish. 

The quartet just about managed to hold off a five-man chase group including Bahrain Victorious GC challenger Pello Bilbao, with the Basque rider managing to gain 48 seconds on the peloton and jump up to third overall.

The podium trio and Großschartner's teammate Fabbro emerged as the strongest on the third-category climb of Tarres, which peaked 19 kilometers from the line, and looked to have the final to themselves until Bilbao's attack spurred the chase group into action.

Over the flat kilometres that followed, the race resembled a team time trial with the five chasers closing in on the leaders, but it was the front group who won out as Moscon launched 300 metres from the finish line.

Großschartner was the only man able to follow his acceleration but didn't have enough power to get past around the outside on the sweeping run to the line, and he had to settle for second place ahead of the remainder of the four-man group, with the chasers rolling in just afterwards.

The stage saw no change at the top of the general classification, with Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) retaining the overall lead ahead of Moscon's teammate Pavel Sivakov, who crashed during the stage and suffered some nasty road rash. 

Bilbao, meanwhile, moved from 10th overall to third at 1:04 thanks to his attack. Israel Start-Up Nation's Alessandro De Marchi regained the blue jersey mountain classification after making the break of the day.

How it unfolded

Stage 3 of the Tour of the Alps saw the riders take on 162 kilometres of racing from Imst to Naturno, taking in four climbs – two classified and two unclassified – as the race headed into Italy and the Alto Adige/Südtirol region for the first time.

The Piller Sattel climb once again featured early one, before the second-category Passo Resia (17km at 3.1 per cent) at the 70-kilometre mark, the tough but unclassified Maso Albergad after 112 kilometres, and a third-category hill at Tarres 19 kilometres from the line.

Uno-X might have left the race after a positive COVID-19 test among their ranks, but mountain classification competitor De Marchi was still there at the start, and he was the man – along with Bora-Hansgrohe's Matteo Fabbro – to kick off the day's attacking.

The Italian duo went away on the Piller Sattel climb, with De Marchi keen to snaffle further mountain points later on. Team BikeExchange worked for race leader Simon Yates but couldn't prevent a large group of riders joining the pair out front over the top of the climb.

Moscon, Großschartner, Antonio Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Edward Ravasi, Mark Christian (Eolo-Kometa), Hermann Pernsteiner (Bahrain Victorious), Luis León Sánchez, Harold Tejada (Astana-Premier Tech), Tony Gallopin, Francois Bidard (AG2R Citroën), Tejay van Garderen (EF Education-Nippo), Michael Storer (Team DSM) made it 14 men out front in the break of the day.

The group built a gap of three minutes in the valley, but as they approached the base of the Passo Resia after 50 kilometres of racing, it was down under two minutes, with the break seeming to have little chance of staying away to the end of the day.

De Marchi duly led the way over the top of the climb 17 kilometres later, retaking the blue KOM jersey from Yates – which he was already wearing as second-placed man – in the process. The break's advantage went up to 2:40 on the way down, with arguably the toughest climb of the day lying in wait.

The Maso Albergad saw the break split up for the first time, with De Marchi among those distanced, even if he'd make it back to the front later on. Back in the peloton, Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè were working on the front, having missed the breakaway.

The Italian squad sent two men – Giovanni Carboni and Daniel Savini – on the attack in the valley, though the duo didn't make much of an impact on the race before being recalled. 

Meanwhile, there was drama as Ineos' GC challenger Sivakov was caught in a crash, sparking a split in the peloton until his group made it back at around 25 kilometres to go, just before the final climb of the day.

Pernsteiner, who was among 10 men left in the break after the split, went on the attack on the short but testing Tarres climb, quickly being joined by Moscon, and getting dropped soon after. Fabbro, Storer and then Großschartner joined Moscon at the head of the race midway up the climb, making it four men in the lead in the final 20 kilometres.

While Pernsteiner tried his best to chase back on his own, further back his teammate Bilbao put in an attack from the peloton in a bid to improve his 10th place on GC. With the peloton a minute down, the Basque rider gained 15 seconds down the descent, linking up with Sánchez, De Marchi, Bidard, Nibali from the breakaway as he pushed on.

At the 12-kilometre mark, the chasing quintet caught Pernsteiner, giving Bilbao some extra firepower on the flat run-in as they closed to within 30 seconds of the lead quartet. The chasers ate away at the advantage over the following kilometres, moving to within 20 seconds at the seven-kilometre mark while the peloton remained 1:05 back.

With three kilometres to go, the chase group had managed to shave another five seconds off the margin, moving to within sight of the leaders even if progress looked slow. 

Despite that added motivation, they didn't quite manage to get across the gap before the finish, leaving the lead quartet to open the sprint.

Moscon was the first to go, distancing Storer and Fabbro with his push to the line. Großschartner managed to follow but didn't have enough to get past in the dash for the line, making it two wins from three so far for the 27-year-old Trento native, with stage 4 to Valle del Chiese temptingly finishing on his home roads in the Val di Non.