Milrams’s Thomas Rorhegger just missed out on a Top Ten finish in the third stage of the Giro d’Italia. In teh sprint of a large group after 198 kilometers from Grado to Valdobbiadene, the Ausrian finished 15th. The win went to Italian Alessandro Petacchi, as it did the day before. The LPR rider beat Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) and Francesco Gavazzi (Lampre) on the ascending finale, and took the overall ead as well. Going into the first difficult stage on Tuesday, Thomas Rohregger was in 20th place.
"It was a very curious finale with lots of crashes, and I ended up alone in the lead group," said Rohregger after the stage. "We were represented at the front by Bj?rn Schr?der almost all day, so we could take it a bit easier in the field and save some strength. I sprinted with the others in the finale, but it was too bad that my teammates had been blocked by that crash. After the first few days I fell good and am looking forward to the first mountaintop finish tomorrow," the Milram rider continued.
The stage was long dominated by a group around Milram’s Bj?rn Schr?der. After only six km, he and four other riders got away from the peloton and built up a lead of up to eight minutes. But after 154 kilometers they were caught by the peloton, 35 km before the finish.
The remaining kilometers, which included a circuitcourse around Valdobbiadene, featured many attacks. But a mass crash 11 km before the finish proved decisive, when a large part of the peloton had to stop and couldn’t catch back up.
Website: Team Milram
