The Irish trio - Adam Rafferty, Seth Dunwoody and Liam O'Brien - came through a nervy opening road stage at Giro Next Gen on Monday, when one the unlikeliest of breakaway efforts made it to the finish.
Rafferty (Hagens Berman Jayco) is best-placed of the Irish trio, in 7th overall, ahead of the first of the two big summit finishes on this week. Tuesday's 144km stage 3 finishes atop the 13.2km HC climb of Passo del Maniva, averaging 6.9 per cent.
And that will be a test where Rafferty and O'Brien (Lidl Trek Future Racing) will look to hold their own at the front, with O'Brien going into that first big climb on the back of 2nd overall at the recent Ronde de l’Isard (2.2U).
Rafferty, after his 6th place in Sunday's opening TT in Rho, will be looking to test himself against the best, racing his first major climb of the season in one of the key stage races of the international U23 scene.
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Dunwoody will be on team duties in the early phase of the stage for his GC man at Bahrain Victorious Development, Jakob Omrzel, after losing some time on Monday's stage; finishing 141st at 6:32.
O'Brien and Rafferty both finished in the main field on Monday, some 30 seconds down on heroic solo winner, Jonathan Vervenne (Soudal Quick-Step Devo Team). The Belgian 22-year-old was up the road for much of the stage in a two-man move with Ilian Alexandre Barhoumi (Decathlon AG2R Development).
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Some 80km into their breakaway - during which they gained a maximum of three minutes - Vervenne pressed on solo when Barhoumi went the wrong away around a roundabout. And though he had 60km to go on his own, he put his head down and incredibly held off the bunch by 30 seconds.
Having finished 16th in Sunday's TT, just 14 seconds down on stage winner, and Monday's race leader, Matthias Schwarzbacher (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z), Vervenne also took the maglia rosa for his efforts.
He now leads by 28 seconds from Schwarzbacher, with Rafferty 7th at 35 seconds, O'Brien in 29th at 53 seconds and Dunwoody 130th at 6:56.
O'Brien has team mate, and former junior world road race champion, Albert Philipsen, 5th overall at 34 seconds, so it will be interesting to see how team dynamics play out when the road kicks up on Tuesday.
