Photo Credit: Giro d’Italia Next Gen / La Presse
Tuesday’s stage three at the Giro d’Italia Next Gen saw the peloton faced with the toughest day of the race so far, with over 3200 metres of climbing spread throughout the 166 kilometre course. On the tricky and potentially hard to control parcours, Team Picnic PostNL’s Development program hatched the plan of trying to get in the break and see if they could go for the stage win, but also try and potentially gain some time in the overall classification.
From the start the battle was fierce to make the move and eventually a group of four went clear with young Belgian, Matteo Vanhuffel, representing the team out front. The quartet worked well together but the peloton kept them relatively close, so on one of the next climbs another group tried to bridge across to the front, which included first-year U23 rider Lennes Jacobs. Jacobs’ group managed to get to 45 seconds away, but those ahead had to keep pressing on the pedals to keep the peloton at bay, and ultimately Jacob’s group was reeled in.
Coming onto the last climb which crested at around 13 kilometres to go, Vanhuffel’s break had been reduced to three and their gap had fallen to around 45 seconds. However, they continued to ride strongly together and went all-in to the line, with Vanhuffel going deep and giving everything they had. With the peloton breathing down their necks, the trio sprinted to the line and just held off the charging bunch, with Vanhuffel picking up a hard-earned and strong third place on the day; while also moving into the KOM jersey.
