ORBETELLO: Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria of UAE Team Emirates was awarded victory on stage three of the Giro d’Italia when original winner Elia Viviani was penalized by race officials for switching trajectory mid-sprint on Monday.
“The Jury watched the video footage of the sprint and has decided to relegate Elia Viviani. The winner is Fernando Gaviria,” Giro organizers said.
Gaviria took the victory after 5hr 23min 19sec in the saddle ahead of France’s Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) and Germany’s Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe).
For 24-year-old Gaviria it was a fifth Giro victory, having won four stages the last time he competed in 2017. Jumbo-Visma’s Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic holds the overall leader’s pink jersey for the third day, 19sec ahead of Britain’s Simon Yates of Mitchelton-Scott with Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida third at 23sec.
The 219km stage got underway in Vinci, to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Italian master painter Leonardo da Vinci, who was born in the Tuscan town.
Japan’s Sho Hatsuyama lead a long solo breakaway over 144km, but the stage was marked by numerous falls with Britain’s Tao Geoghegan Hart losing more than one minute and a half.
“With only one rider in the breakaway, it made it a very long stage,” said Roglic.
“It enabled me to enjoy the Maglia Rosa (pink jersey) a bit more. I wasn’t really scared of the crosswinds at the end because we are a team from Holland so we know how to deal with the wind.”
Tuesday’s fourth stage, one of the longest in this year’s race, covers 235km from Orbetello to Frascati, south of Rome, with undulating twisting roads with the closing kilometers uphill.
