ProTeam Jenno Berckmoes sprints to third place at Coppi e Bartali

In nice sunny weather, the riders got a short hilly stage of 109 kilometers around Pesaro. The early breakaway was one with four riders, who built up an advantage around 2 minutes.

"Our first task today was to avoid having strong teams in the breakaway", Jenno Berckmoes explains. "The team did a good job. At the end, the course went up and down and there were several attacks, but we were at the front the whole time. Harm (Vanhoucke) and Sylvain (Moniquet) really did an excellent job in controlling the attacks." Around 15 kilometers from the finish the bunch came together again.

"Logan (Currie) brought me into the perfect position in the finale, in the first five riders. Then we still got a technical descent, towards the flat finish. We tackled the descent, there was a gap in between us and Marco Brenner (Tudor Pro Cycling), who eventually wins. Logan went full gas to take him back, but we just missed a little bit", Berckmoes says. "I got closed in by Matteo Malucelli, who takes the second place, but I'm happy about my sprint. The whole team was super strong, it was a nice beginning. Tomorrow is the hardest stage, we have Harm and Sylvain for the GC and for myself I will see how far I can get."

Picture: PhotoNews