Darren Rafferty will be pulled into team duties, at least for now, on the U23 Giro d'Italia as his team mate Leo Hayter won yesterday's stage 2 and claimed the race lead ahead of the first uphill finish of the race today, Monday.
Yesterday, on the 166.5km stage from Rossano Veneto to Pinzolo, Petr Kelemen (Tudor) and Kyrylo Tsarenko (Gallina Ecotek Lucchini) attacked early and got a gap at one point of over five minutes.
However, Hayter (Hagens Berman Axeon) jumped from the peloton with 25km to go and rode across the two minute gap to the leaders solo. Soon after he caught them he attacked and was clear leading the race alone. The British rider them powered his way to victory as the two men he had caught and went through were recaptured by the bunch.
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Hayter rode a very strong finale, which was gradually uphill for most of the last 25km, and won the stage solo by 39 seconds. Francesco Busatto (General Store Essegibi F.lli Curia) won the bunch sprint for 2nd place.
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Rafferty, a first-year U23 rider and the only Irish cyclist in the race, finished in the bunch, as he had done on the opening stage on Saturday. Hayter now leads overall by 43 seconds from Busatto. Today the race takes in a 182.8km stage from Pinzolo to Santa Caterina Valfurva with a 12km, cat 2, climb with an average gradient of 4.8 per cent to finish.
