Roche keeps overall hopes alive after late Giro scare into Dublin; Kittel takes stage

Marcel Kittel in the points jersey just about edges out Team Sky's Ben Swift for his seond stage win in as many days on Giro d'Italia stage 3 into Dublin today (Photo: Toby Watson)

Now three stages into the Giro d'Italia, Nicolas Roche suffered his first real scare of the race when he punctured with around 6km remaining on a miserable 187km from Armagh to Dublin today, Sunday.

With the field just about to close down the early breakaway of the day and set the scene for a bunch sprint on Merrion Square in Dublin's south inner city, Roche kept his nerve during the late drama.

Having been serviced from the cavalcade for a puncture, he got back on to the peloton as the rain cleared up and gave way to sunshine and blue skies for the massive crowds that turned out to cheer the riders into the city centre.

Roche's director, Lars Michaelson said when the gap to the leaders came down to 30 seconds with just 15kms remaining, the Tinkoff-Saxo team made a point of going to the front to protect Roche and co-leader Rafal Majka from any mishaps that can occur late on long stages.

“It was another rainy and very hectic day in the Giro and there was a lot of crashes and punctures along the way to Dublin but we were actually rather lucky not to have as many as the other teams," he said.

"However, the one puncture we really didn’t want came with 6 kilometres to go and we had a rough time getting Nico up to the back of the peloton. We just made it up to the peloton but there was a small gap in the field apparently causing all the GC riders to lose 11 seconds."

Along with Ireland's other rider in the race Philip Deignan (Team Sky), Roche finished in the main body of the peloton that was on the wrong side of the 11-second split as a gap opened up in the sprint to the line.

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While yesterday's stage winner into Belfast Marcel Kittel and his Giant-Shimano team lost their way a little in the closing kilometres today, the big German still had the strength and smarts to look after himself and just pip Team Sky's Ben Swift on the line for win number two in as many days outside Government Buildings.

The race came down to a bunch sprint after the breakaway - Miguel Rubiano (Col), Giorgio Cecchinel (Neri Sottoli), Yonder Godoy (Androni), Gert Dockx (Lotto) and Maarten Tjallingii (Belkin) - were recaptured.

Michael Matthew (Orica-GreenEDGE) retains the leader's pink jersey and the leader in the young riders’ classification while Kittel keeps the points jersey and breakaway rider again today Tjallingii keeps his lead in the climbers' classification.

The race enjoys a rest day tomorrow, Monday, which it will use to fly from Ireland back to Italy, where the action resumes on Tuesday.

May 9th-June 1st: Giro d’Italia

Sun, May 11th: Stage 3 Armagh-Dublin (187km)

General Classification