Good news: Guillaume Boivin able to carry on in the Giro d’Italia

Monday’s third stage of the 2019 Giro d’Italia had a few points of interest in an otherwise rather long (220 km) but scenic day in Tuscany, the most notable being that Guillaume Boivin continued to ride after Sunday’s nasty crash, albeit with his left elbow and knee bandaged.

These Canadians are built from tough stuff – @Guillaumeboivin riding on the front of the group after his crash yesterday that some felt might rule him out of the #Giro102
Forza Guillaume ????
? @bettiniphoto pic.twitter.com/xUMKO3aqZE

— Israel Start-Up Nation / Israel Cycling Academy (@YallaIsraelSUN) May 13, 2019

Also notable was Monday’s rare solo breakaway. Usually Grand Tour breakaways are small at first: last year in the Giro’s first two road stages in Israel the escape numbers were three and three, with Boivin included in both. On Sunday, there were eight fugitives breaking, and on Monday a lone rider from wild card team Nippo Vini Fantini Faizanè, Sho Hatsuyama, lit out for glory early, built up a gap of 7:00 and survived until the 75 km to go mark. At one point he waved to the crowd, encouraging their cheers. This bold move was, perhaps, to counter the fact that Hatsuyama’s teammate and Japanese compatriot Hiroki Nishimura was the only rider eliminated on time in Saturday’s time trial.

?? Sho Hatsuyama is leading the Stage 3 with a sensational break ✌️?#Giro pic.twitter.com/OJrnhHvLe0

— Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 13, 2019

A bunch sprint into a headwind in Orbetello appeared to have resulted in Elia Viviani’s sixth career Giro win, getting the race’s crucial Italian victory out of the way early, but the race jury overturned the decision and handed the win to Fernando Gaviria

Tuesday’s Stage 4 has an uphill finish after some rolling terrain and should elicit some GC skirmishing.

2019 Giro d’Italia Stage 3
1) Fernando Gaviria (Colombia/UAE-Team Emirates) 5:23:19
2) Arnaud Démare (France/Groupama-FDJ) s.t.
3) Pascal Ackermann (Germany/Bora-Hansgrohe) s.t.

2019 Giro d’Italia GC
1) Primož Roglič (Slovenia/Jumbo-Visma) 10:21:01
2) Simon Yates (Great Britain/Mitchelton-Scott) +0:19
3) Vincenzo Nibali (Italy/Bahrain-Merida) +0:23