Ben Healy, the Irish U23 road international, has taken a top 10 placing on a summit finish stage at the Baby Giro as his team mate Tom Pidcock claimed stage victory and the race lead.
Both riders are competing for Trinity Racing, the elite team established by Irish cycling agent Andrew McQuaid. They will now look to defend the leader's jersey for the remaining four stages of the U23 Giro.
Healy (19), who won a stage of the Tour de l'Avenir in his first season in the U23 category last year, placed 10th on yesterday's 159.6km stage 4 from Bonferraro di Sorgà to Bolca, which finished atop a cat 1 climb.
Pidcock, Britain's rising star on the road and in cyclocross, rode away on the climb to win the stage by 22 seconds from Kevin Colleoni (Biesse Arvedi). Another Italian, Giovanni Aleotti (Friuli ASD), was 3rd at 37 seconds.
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Healy came home in 10th place at 2:23; a great ride at this level especially as he was bound to team duties and suffered in the soaring temperatures on stage 1 when he lost a lot of time.
Pidcock, who was also 2nd on stage 3, now leads the race by 58 seconds from Colleoni, with Aleotti 3rd at 1:15 with four stages remaining.
Healy is not in the running in the general classification as he lost over 25 minutes on the opening stage on Saturday. He told stickybottle he overheated on that stage but apart from that bad experience he said his form was very good at present.
The next two stages - today, Wednesday, and tomorrow - the riders face a relatively flat course but with some medium level climbing. However, they are back into the high mountains for the last two days of racing on Friday and Saturday.
Healy, Pidcock and their Trinity Racing team mates now face a major challenge in defending the race lead. However, if they can get through the next two days their strength in the mountains should mean Pidcock comes into his own on the final two days of racing in his current form.
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