Giro d’Italia: Mark Cavendish wins stage 3 sprint in Balatonfüred

Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) made a winning return to the Giro d’Italia with victory in the first bunch sprint of the race.

He started his sprint early and held off challenges from Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) who placed second and third respectively.

On what was for the most part a quiet, slow day, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) defended the pink jersey, and all of the GC contenders finished in the bunch.

Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl took control of the peloton from Alpecin-Fenix with 1.3km to go, with three riders to lead Cavendish out.

However, Cavendish wound up having to start his sprint earlier than usual and seemed in danger of being passed at the line by the fast-approaching Démare and Gaviria. But neither rider was able to make any inroads when trying to overtake the Manxman and Cavendish held his line and held on for victory.

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A bike-length behind him, barely anything separated Démare, Gaviria, Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty–Gobert Matériaux), and Jakub Mareczko (Alpecin-Fenix), who all crossed the line in a horizontal line.

“I’m very happy,” Cavendish said at the finish. “It’s really nice. We wanted to be good in this first sprint, we did, and I’m very happy.

“We’ve got half a team for the climbs here, and half a team for the sprints. Everyone committed, we rode with Pieter Serry today. We were supposed to have Mauro Schmid and [Davide] Ballerini keeping us there in the final, but we didn’t see Mauro. So, Ballerini did the last 10 or 15k in the wind for us. Normally we like him for the lead-out, but it got like that.

“With Ballerini, [Bert] Van Lerberghe, and Morky [Michael Mørkøv], we’ve got an incredible final group, I’ve said that before the race. And they delivered today. Ballerini kept us ‘till the roundabout, then Van Lerberghe went. The other teams came, but Morky stayed super-cool.

“In the end, I had to go long, with about 300m to go. I just had to hold the side, and I’m happy I could hang on for that long for the win.

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How it happened

A full contingent of 176 riders took to the start-line for a third and final day in Hungary. The first abandon of the race happened early in the stage, however, as Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Victorious) climbed off, having not recovered from the injuries sustained on his first-day crash.

Samuele Rivi (EOLO-Kometa), Mattia Bais, and Filippo Tagliani (both Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli) attacked at the start of the stage and were allowed to form the day’s break.

With the peloton happy with the make-up of the break, calm weather conditions, and almost 200km still to ride before the finish at Lake Balaton, the race settled into a slow, serene, uneventful pattern.

Things livened up temporarily in anticipation for the first intermediate sprint of the day, where points were available in the maglia ciclamino classification. In the peloton, Groupama-FDJ and Intermarché led out their respective sprinters Démare and Girmay, who was in the jersey, but were both defeated by Gaviria.

Having remained steady at around two minutes for most of the day, the break’s advantage began to fall as the riders entered the final 60km.

With the gap down to under 30 seconds, Rivi attacked from the break 44km from the finish, dropping Tagliani but taking Bais with him. That gave Rivi and Bais something of a new lease of life, and they still had the energy to attack each other a few more times before the catch was made, 27.5km from the finish.

The pace gradually increased as the finish approached, but Rick Zabel (Israel-Premier Tech) and Pascal Eenkhoorn (Jumbo-Visma) were still able to clip off the front to contest for King of the Mountains points at the top of the fourth category Tihany climb, 13km from the finish. Eenkhoorn won the sprint, but Zabel kept the jersey on countback.

Eenkhoorn wasn’t done yet and stayed out front, while Zabel dropped back into the peloton, before being caught with 6km left to ride.

Alpecin-Fenix was the first team to form a long train to take control at the front, 3km from the finish, but it was superseded by Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl 1.7km later, which set up Cavendish for victory.

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What’s to come

The riders get to enjoy a rest day tomorrow, albeit one involving lots of travel as they make their way from Hungary to Sicily.

But after that awaits the first big mountains of the race, Mount Etna, where the GC contenders will do battle on Tuesday’s stage 4.