Porte Defends His Giro del Trentino Lead

24 April 2015 02:18

Richie Porte of Team Sky was able to defend his lead in the Giro del Trentino race in Italy after finishing third behind winner Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r-La Mondiale).

Porte took over the lead with victory in the second stage and led the riders out on a 183.8km stage from Ala to Fierozzo Val Dei Mocheni.

With fifteen kilometres gone, Voss, Andreetta, Dupont, Larsson, Fraille and Postlberger had formed a break but Team Sky soon shut them down and a new group of fifteen riders in Dupont, Houle, Malacarne, Brown, Frapporti, Taborre, Andreetta, Finetto, Ovechkin, Berhane, Larsson, Benedetti, Voss, Fraile and Postlberger took over with Castiblanco chasing them.

Castiblanco gave up and returned to the peloton as did Bardet as this lead group took a lead of 2.43 after 102kms of racing.

Going into the final forty kilometres and only Benedetti, Voss, Berhane, Dupont, Malacarne and Fraile were left in the front group, trying to protect a lead of forty five seconds.

Torres and Bongiorno joined them and with twenty two kilometres to go, Torres was out front on his own. Rosa, Bardet and Dupont caught back up to him before Dupont was dropped.

They were passed by Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r-La Mondiale) with just over three kilometres to go and joined by the race leader Richie Porte and Mikel Landa who finished second behind Porte on the second stage.

There was no stopping Pozzovivo who took the victory finishing five seconds ahead of Landa and Porte, followed by Bardet, Cunego, Torres, Cataldo, Rosa, Meintjes and Konig.

Richie Porte leads the race going into the final stage by 22 seconds from Landa, fifty eight seconds from Konig, 1.11 from Cataldo and 1.13 from Cunego.

Speaking about his win to his team's website, Pozzovivo said: "We knew that we had worked well yesterday. We wanted to win today and it was necessary to find solutions, so our race tactics were good.

"Hubert and Hugo spent all day in front and I knew I could be involved in the final push for the line.

"I stayed in the wheels while other competitors were trying to close the gap. It only remained to fulfill all the good work of the team."

Source: DSG