Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 3

May 11, 2025 The day in Albania starts and finishes in Vlorë in the South of the country after 160KM. It's a gradually undulating first 55KM before the first of two classified climbs. The Qafa Shakellës is quite an easy climb at just 4% over 5KM. The race starts to get difficult after the Redbull Golden Kilometer with a 5KM unclassified climb of Qafa e Vishës that averages almost 7%. Just 16KM after the top, the Qafa e Llogarasë (Llogara Pass) starts which will be the main feature of the day. It depends on how teams want to play it but the climb is 10.5KM at 7.5% and could be very selective. There are 39KM from the top to the finish in Vlorë which may be too far for the GC riders to be too interested in making big moves but it is unlikely the pure sprinters will be there at the finish. Yesterday's stage winner Josh Tarling of Ineos, Mark Donovan of Q36.5, Chris Hamilton of Picnic-PostNL, and Lorenzo Germani of Groupama-FDJ got away after a few kilometers of fast racing. Alessandro Tonelli of Polti-VisitMalta and Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R went in pursuit of the four leaders. They were stuck at 30 seconds behind until 133KM to go when they finally made contact to make six at the front. Gianni Moscon of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Jacopo Mosca of Lidl-Trek were doing the work behind and had the break pegged at around 3 minutes. Just before the feedzone with 120KM to go, a herd of goat was shepherded at the side of the road as the peloton were passing. A few goats got loose and one came across the road. Dion Smith of Intermarché-Wanty narrowly avoided a collision with the goat which could have been quite serious. The break went up and over the Qafa Shakellë with 100KM to go and a gap still holding at 3 minutes. They still had 2 minutes 45 seconds as they hit the coast for their journey back North to Himarë and the Redbull Golden Kilometer. The break rolled through the sprint point and immediately started the ascent of Qafa e Vishës but a rush from the peloton had the gap down to 2 minutes quite quickly. De Bondt flatted out of the break with 54KM to go as they approached the large climb of Qafa e Llogarasë just before the Intermediate Sprint in Gjilek. Just 1 minute separated the break from the peloton as they started the Qafa e Llogarasë at 48.5KM to go. Lidl-Trek set the pace from the bottom just as they did on Stage 1 for Mads Pedersen. 3KM into the climb, Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana attacked from the bunch with Pello Bilbao of Bahrain Victorious and Gianmarco Garofoli of Soudal Quickstep. Garofoli was dropped as Fortunato kept pressing on with the Mountains Points seeming like his main objective. With 3.5KM to climb, Bilbao and Fortunato caught Hamilton and Tonelli who were the last two remaining from the original break. At the top, Fortunato took the points to draw even for the lead in that competition. Bilbao was the only other rider with him and they had 50 seconds on the bunch as they the long descent. UAE-XRG led the relatively large peloton over the top. The start of the descent was quite technical but it opened up near the bottom to three lanes and the speed was consistently above 80KM/HR. Bilbao and Fortunato were caught on the flat road to the finish with 18KM to go as Lidl-Trek were still controlling for a bunch sprint. The riders hit the coast in Orikum and were wide across the road with the GC teams playing it safe as reports of wind were coming in. Wind never materialized but the positioning battle was in full swing with 5KM to go. The road remained just 1 lane for a quite a while making real estate at the front very selective. Lidl-Trek and Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe had control but it was a big fight for Pedersen's wheel. Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek had to do a big turn inside the last kilometer from around 750M to 200M. He started to fade but Pedersen was primed. He started the sprint with Corbin Strong of Israel-Premier Tech on his wheel. Strong looked like he was going to get level with Pedersen but the Dane's sprint endurance outlasted Strong's run and he was able to take his second win in three days. Strong took second with Orluis Aular of Movistar taking another third place. Pedersen's win came with enough bonus seconds to move him back into the GC lead by 9 seconds over Primož Roglič. The rest of the top 10 remained the same going into the rest day.