Stage three at the Giro Ciclistico d’Italia saw the peloton take on an intriguing 132 kilometre long parcours, starting and finishing in the town of Cesenatico. With several tricky climbs in the middle of the stage before a downhill and flatter final 30 kilometres, it looked like a stage where the breakaway and sprint teams would battle it out for the stage honours.

As expected, it was an infernal start to the day with numerous failed breakaway attempts before the elastic eventually snapped and a strong nine rider breakaway managed to get clear. With all Development Team DSM riders in the peloton, focus stayed on being safe and conserving as much energy as possible. The group out front worked well together and despite the best efforts of the charging peloton in the finale, they would fight it out for the stage win. Marius Mayrhofer would lead home the team in the sprint behind, with all of the team finishing safely within the bunch.

“In the hilly part of the race we were together with Henri, holding a good position in the peloton and keeping him safe,” explained Mayrhofer. “Unfortunately, the breakaway stayed away and we could only sprint for eighth place and in the final I didn’t risk too much because of that. I felt good in the sprint and was also quite fast, which was nice. Henri came home safely in the peloton which is the most important thing for us. We also did a nice lead out at the finish too, with Leon doing a super good job.”

Team DSM coach Bennie Lambregts added: “I think we did a good job today to protect Henri as much as possible today and save energy where we could. There was a peloton of around 80 riders that came to the finish together and all five of us were in there which was a good job. In the final we decided to let the other teams chase the breakaway but they didn’t manage to close it in the end. In the bunch, Marius managed to finished roughly fourth or fifth in that group sprint for an okay day result for us. We’re improving day-by-day with our teamwork as well which is nice to see and we’ll keep working on that throughout the race.”