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Hunter wins, Brajkovic leads at Giro del Trentino
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It was the battle of the uphill sprint specialists in Friday’s third stage at the Giro del Trentino with South African Robbie Hunter (Barloworld) winning for the third time this season.
Hunter had the most gas in the tank to fend off Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) to win the 160km course with a rising finishing into Innervillgraten as the four-day race dipped into Austria. Danilo Di Luca crossed the line third despite efforts by his LPR team to dominate the stage.
Janez Brajkovic (Astana) pedaled one day closer to overall victory after retaining his four-second lead to Ivan Basso (Liquigas) going into Saturday’s finale. The GC remain largely unchanged, with Garzelli earning a second-place time bonus to climb into sixth overall, now at 1:07 back.
The short, 160km stage saw a potentially dangerous, 20-man breakaway form with early attacks at 19km. Three LPR riders were in the move along with Gianpaolo Caruso (Flaminia), third in Thursday’s summit finish at Alpe di Pampeago.
The break wound over the spectacular Sella and Gardena climbs and forged a gap of nearly three minutes when Di Luca bridged out of the main pack to join the breakaway at 74km.
Gabriele Bosisio (LPR) bolted out of the breakaway group in a daring solo attempt at 110km, but Astana and Liquigas worked together to bring everything back together with 15km to go.
LPR then worked to keep a lid on attacks in the closing 10km to try to set up Di Luca, but Hunter had the best legs to win the stage.
“To be honest, I knew my condition was good,” Hunter said at the finish. “Today I managed to keep the wheels of the best riders in spite of this mountainous stage and I reached a great win. This result is very important in the view of the Giro d’Italia. I guess I’m much stronger on the mountains compared with the other sprinters”.
The 33rd Giro del Trentino concludes Saturday with the 214km fourth stage from Sillian to Pejo Fonti in the longest stage of the race.
The day’s major obstacle is the Passo della Mendola (15km at 6.2%) at 150km. Most of the action will probably concentrate on the final, 9km climb with an average of 4 percent to the line.
