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The breakaway trio are on the climb now.
Only a kilometre left until the official start of the climb. It’s a slow and steady one, with an average gradient of 5.3% that will start to hurt towards the end of its 9.2km duration. Will any teams apply pressure to dry and drop some sprinters, or deem it too far from the finish to be worth the effort?
Here are the updated points classification rankings:
2 Andresen 35
3 Milan 29
4 Sevilla 28
5 Silva 25
Vernon was the only other rider to respond and follow the Lidl pair, but didn’t bother sprinting against them. As for Magnier and the rest, they were happy to stay in the peloton and save their legs.
Milan takes 3 points, and his teammate (who was Walscheid, not Mullen) takes 1.
Lidl are making a move – in fact Milan has clipped off the front with Mullen.
Now we wait for the peloton. There are only 3 points left for the first rider from it to the line, and 1 from the next.
No – Tarozzi took the points uncontested.
For now, the spint is the focus. The three riders are looking at each other – are they going to sprint against each other?
Jonathan Milan. We might get some idea of how well he’s sprinting come this intermediate sprint. So far at this Giro, he hasn’t quite looked at his best.
A reminder of the current points classification rankings:
2 Andresen 35
3 Milan 26
4 Silva 25
5 Vernon 25
Before the climb begins, there’s an intermediate sprint coming up with points on offer in the Maglia Ciclamino competition. Yesterday’s was hotly contested, so look out for Milan, Magnier and co to move to the front and start fighting for position imminently.
One team that managed to avoid disaster yesterday was Netcompany Ineos. Their riders avoided the crash, and came through the stage looking in a strong position, with Egan Bernal already up to third overall after smartly taking some easy bonus seconds on offer.
The front of the peloton, being led by Magnier’s Soudal teammate.
Arnaud De Lie is talking to his team car. On paper he’d be a top candidate for the stage in a sprint today, but really struggled on the climbs yesterday, so will be up against it to survive today’s.
The road is going ever so slightly uphill, which it will continue to do so gradually until the onset of the official Borovets Pass, in about 35km’s time.
One rider who was involved in the crash, but who survived it to live another day at this Giro, was Derek Gee-West. Though held up by the incident, he didn’t seem too badly affected by it, based on the way he powered past riders while trying to rejoin the peloton. Ultimately he didn’t quite manage to, but retains his GC hopes by limiting his losses to one minute.
Pink jersey favourite Jonas Vingegaard having a chat with Johan Price-Pejtersen in the peloton.
Another victim of yesterday’s crash was Bahrain-Victorious’ leader Santiago Buitrago, who suffered concussion after his fall.
The three riders leading the race.
And an XDS Astana rider is too, doing their bit to defend Silva’s pink jerssey.
The Unibet Rose Rockets rider is now contributing to the pace-setting.
Thomas Silva, enjoying what has so far been a very comfortable day in the pink jersey.
Soudal’s Bastiaens is doing all the work for now, but there’s a Unibet Rose Rockets rider behind hum. That suggests they believe Dylan Groenewegen can survive the climb to compete for the sprint today.
Soudal-QuickStep have stepped up, putting Ayco Bastiaens at the front. They’re showing confidence that their man Paul Magnier can repeat his stage 1 sprint success.
The gap’s up to over three minutes.
XDS Astana have placed two riders at the front of the peloton, but they’re not exactly setting a pace yet, allowing the gap to continue to grow.
It’s very relaxed in the peloton, where riders are chatting with, rather than attacking, one another.
No more attacks were forthcoming, and it seems we have our break of the day already.
So far so familiar – Diego Pablo Sevilla and his Polti VisitMalta teammate Alessandro Tonelli have attacked with Bardiani’s Manuele Tarozzi attacked right from the gun, and have been allowed up the road.
We’re about to find out as the flag is about to be waved.
So far at this Giro there have been no fights to get into the day’s break – will that be different today, now that the GC rankings have begun to take some shape, with many riders now well down on time already?
Race leader Guillermo Thomas Silva at the start.
Plovdiv is hosting today’s stage, and the riders are moving through its throngs of crowds now for the unofficial start.
Adam Yates, battered and bruised at the end of yesterday’s stage. Remarkably, this is the first of the 17 Grand Tours he has competed in that he has failed to finish.
Yates’ UAE team were easily the most ill-affected from that crash. Yates joins fellow climbers Jay Vine and Marc Soler in retiring, while their hopefuls for the stage yesterday, Antonio Morgado and Jhonatan Narváez, also went down. Today will be about recovering and regrouping, before they reassess how to approach this race with their depleted roster.
The biggest news overnight is that Adam Yates has pulled out of the race. The Brit went down hard yesterday, and fell out of GC contention, and it’s been decided he won’t race on having shown some delayed concussive symptoms.
That’s a stark reversal in fortunes from twelve months ago for the Yates family, who this time last year were celebrating Simon’s surprise overall victory at the Giro.
Adam Yates out of Giro d’Italia following brutal crash, won’t start stage 3
For the GC men, the day will be solely about survival, and yesterday’s nasty crash was a harrowing reminder of how things can go south so suddenly at Grand Tour racing. Five riders didn’t make it to the finish, and there have been more withdrawals overnight.
We’re in Bulgaria again, for a third and final stage before a rest day and border crossing brings the race back to the motherland. And the parcours is kind of like the middle ground between day one’s flat roads, and yesterday’s hills – there’s a long category two climb halfway through to challenge the sprinters, but after that a straightforward run-in to the line.
Hello and welcome to stage three of the Giro d’Italia!