Ireland's Eddie Dunbar has again finished 2nd on a stage at Coppi e Bartali, with his 20-year-old team mate Ben Tulett claiming victory on today's stage 3 in San Marino. Dunbar (25) has retained the race lead after today's queen stage and now looks odds-on favourite to take overall victory with two stages remaining.
The 147km stage 3 today saw the main field shredded to pieces and by the time it caught the early breakaway with just over 10km to go, the group was down to 20 riders.
As the group, containing race leader Dunbar, raced onto the final climb up to the finish line, Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) put in a powerful attack and briefly went clear solo. He was then joined by Tulett and Dunbar as well as Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost).
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That very strong foursome proved much stronger than the others and it was clear they would fight it out for stage victory.
Dunbar put in a dig on the climb, splitting the group, but was brought back. With just over 1km to go, Tulett attacked hard and got a gap on his own. Behind him, Carr took to the front of the group and rode all the way up the climb; his work ensuring the gap to Tulett was minimised, meaning he didn't gain enough time to take the race lead.
But Tulett still powered into the finish to take his first professional win, with Dunbar taking 2nd place, Hirschi 3rd and Carr 4th. Dunbar finished just a couple of lengths behind Tulett and so retained his race lead, by nine seconds from Tulett.
