Darren Rafferty is puttting together a strong performance at the Tour of the Alps, with three more hard climbing stages to come (Photo: Tommaso Pelagalli)
Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost) is putting together a solid ride at Tour of the Alps (2.Pro), making the much reduced peloton on the opening day yesterday and also performing strongly on the final climb to the finish line of stage 2 today.
Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), one of Italy's young rising stars, seized the day today to win the stage and take the race lead. He was fastest in the sprint into Val Martello from the seven-rider select group that pulled clear on the final climb - 5km at nine per cent.
Rafferty was among the strongest behind them, crossing the line in 25th place and just 46 seconds down. That was a strong performance and now means he's up to 23rd overall.
Though the Co Tyrone rider has some work to do to climb the general classification and perhaps take a result, there are plenty of climbs to come and he appears to be riding strongly.
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Today's stage - some 147.5km from Telfs to Val Martello, with 2,650m of climbing - saw the early breakaway only swept up on the final climb.
After Ineos Grenadiers had worked hard on the front for Thymen Arensman, he attacked with just under 4km to go. Last year's race winner, Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) and U23 world road race champion Lorenzo Finn (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe).
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That trio pressed on in pursuit of the last breakaway rider, still leading solo with 3km to go, Mattia Gaffuri (Picnic-PostNL).
They were soon joined by Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). And though that group split in the final, as a Pellizzari surge finally brought back the impressive Gaffuri, they regrouped and it came down to a sprint.
With three hard climbing stages remaining, Pellizzari leads overall by four seconds from Arensman, who was 2nd today. Despite his long breakaway ride today, Gaffuri was 3rd on the stage and is 3rd overall at six seconds.
Rafferty is now 23rd at 56 seconds, just over 20 seconds off the top 15, a position he will be hoping to improve upon.
Giulio Pellizzari caps off a brilliant display from Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe to take the win 👏
That success also sees the young Italian move into the lead at the Tour of the Alps. pic.twitter.com/7ys57A0qJp
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