With the opening day of racing behind them, Team Picnic PostNL and the rest of the Tour of the Alps peloton rolled out of Telfs late this afternoon for the second day of action. Faced with some categorised climbs throughout the day and the only summit finish of the race, it was expected to be a battle on the slopes at the end of the stage.
Team Picnic PostNL were active from the start with the goal of infiltrating the day’s breakaway with Mattia Gaffuri, and through some good teamwork they did just that; as Gaffuri made it into a group of nine that formed at the head of the race. They worked well together and built up a gap that peaked at five minutes, but it looked as if the peloton had things under control when the gap had tumbled to only one minute and 30 seconds at 30 kilometres to go. However, Gaffuri’s group continued to push on the pedals and as they started the last climb their advantage was at just over one minute.
That meant the break couldn’t play any games, so with around five kilometres to go Gaffuri stamped on the pedals and the group diminished one-by-one, with the Italian eventually leading solo. Behind, the peloton thinned down further as the GC riders upped the tempo and Pellizzari bridged to Gaffuri with around one kilometre of climbing remaining, before another group joined over the top. From there, it was a cagey final few hundred metres and shallow downhill run to the line where Gaffuri showed a good turn of speed to take third place on the stage – a fine reward for a big day out in the breakaway, and his first ever .Pro level podium.






