Two out of three for Viviani

Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) made it two out of three by winning today’s bunch sprint in Eilat following on from yesterday’s victory in Tel Aviv. Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) retained the Maglia Rosa with a one second advantage over second placed Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), while Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Soudal) – previously in third placed – has dropped down to 15th following the crosswinds towards the finale of today’s stage.

STATISTICS

• Rohan Dennis took the 25th Maglia Rosa for Australian riders, putting Australia 8th on the nations’ ranking with 28 days in pink.
• Two Italian stage wins in the first two days: it hasn’t happened since 2009 when Alessandro Petacchi won stage 2 (to Trieste) and stage 3 (to Valdobbiadene). There was only one Italian stage win last year: Vincenzo Nibali’s victory on stage 16 (to Bormio).
• This is the eighth podium at the Giro d’Italia for Sacha Modolo who’s got two stage victories, two second places and four third places. It’s the sixth podium for Sam Bennett, after four in 2017 and two this year.

FINAL RESULT
1 – Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) – 229km in 5h02’09”, average speed 45.474km/h
2 – Sacha Modolo (Team EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale) s.t.
3 – Sam Bennett (Bora – Hansgrohe) s.t.

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION
1 – Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team)
2 – Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) at 1”
3 – José Gonçalves (Team Katusha Alpecin) at 13”

JERSEYS

• Maglia Rosa (pink), general classification leader, sponsored by Enel – Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team)
• Maglia Ciclamino (cyclamen), sprint classification leader, sponsored by Segafredo – Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors)
• Maglia Azzurra (blue), King of the Mountains classification leader, sponsored by Banca Mediolanum – Enrico Barbin (Bardiani CSF)
• Maglia Bianca (white), young rider general classification leader, sponsored by Eurospin – Maximilian Schachmann (Quick-Step Floors)

PRESS CONFERENCE
The stage winner Viviani said: “Today, the race was maybe what we imagined in the middle of the desert, with around 2000 metres of ups and downs. All GC riders and sprinters teams rode at the front. Some riders lost contact as it was not an easy stage. The speed of the sprint was a bit low because of the corner with 350m to go. The wind also went up in the last few kilometres. Luckily it wasn’t as hot as we feared. There was some contact between Sam Bennett and myself in the sprint. I was already on his side when he made a clear move to the barriers, he was pushing me towards the road side but I made him understand that I was already there. With Quick-Step, I have the best team for the sprints and whatever I can win, I bring it home, regardless of who my rivals are. It doesn’t matter what the other top sprinters are doing at the moment, I’ve already faced them at the beginning of the season. I have chosen to do the Giro this year. I have already taken part in all three Grand Tours and I consider the Giro as the most difficult to finish. It’s my goal to complete it with the Maglia Ciclamino this year.”

The Maglia Rosa Dennis said: “This is the first time I have retained the leader’s jersey of a Grand Tour. It makes it one goal achieved for this Giro and to take the Maglia Rosa to Italy is something special. It’s been stressful today – quite nerve wracking – but I’m glad I got through unscathed as with 5km to go, I thought I wouldn’t hold onto the jersey. I’ve been nicely surprised with Israel: when we race outside of Europe, Australia or the US, it’s pretty quiet on the roads. Here it’s been the complete opposite. Fans have supported us as if they were a real big cycling country. This amount of enthusiastic people is scary sometimes but it’s definitely better than an absolute silence.”