Australia’s Michael Matthews has ended his eight-year losing streak by winning stage three of the 106th Giro d’Italia.
The 32-year-old from the Jayco AlUla team prevailed on the home straight in the expected sprint duel against the Dane Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) and secured his first day’s victory in the Tour of Italy since 2015.
The Germans played no part in the 216 km from the coastal town of Vasto to Melfi inland. Lennard Kämna (Bora-hansgrohe), who wants to compete for the overall ranking for the first time in Italy, crossed the finish line with the peloton. Remco Evenepoel was also one of them, with the Belgian road world champion defending his lead in the overall classification.
After a flat start, the first difficult climb separated the field, Pedersen also fell back from the leading group at first, but fought his way back up. On the home straight, there was a duel between the sprint stars Matthews and former world champion Pedersen, which the Australian won. It was his third stage win overall at the Giro.
The first major touchstone awaits the peloton on Wednesday. The fourth, 175km stage takes three category 2 climbs inland towards the west coast, where a tricky mountain finish will push the riders to their limits.
The second most important cycling national tour after the Tour de France ends after 3489.2 km on May 28th in Rome.