Today's third stage of the Giro d'Italia was a tale of two fortunes for the two Tinkoff-Saxo captains in the Italian grand tour. While Nicolas Roche punctured late in the stage and had to chase hard to rejoin the peloton, Rafal Majka was one of only very few GC riders to be ahead of an 11-second split in the finale.

Five riders formed today’s breakaway in Giro d’Italia’s 187 kilometer long third stage from Armagh to Dublin but everyone expected another bunch sprint decision. The stage was dominated by a fierce headwind and the escapees including Miguel Rubiano (Col), Giorgio Cecchinel (Neri Sottoli), Yonder Godoy (Androni), Gert Dockx (Lotto) and Maarten Tjallingii (Belkin) were only given a short leash.
 
With 15 kilometers to go, the gap was down to 30 seconds and Tinkoff-Saxo went to the front of the pack to protect Nicolas Roche and Rafal Majka from any mishaps that often occur in the finales of the first stages. But with 6 kilometers to go, Roche suffered a puncture and while the peloton thundered towards the finish line, the Tinkoff-Saxo boys were struggling to bring the Irishman back to the peloton in due time.
 
On the finish line, Edvald Boasson-Hagen (Sky) opened the sprint for teammate, Ben Swift but the fastest man in the pack at this time is Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) and he celebrated his 26th birthday by taking the stage win.
 
“It was another rainy and very hectic day in the Giro and there was a lot of crashes and punctures along the way to Dublin but we were actually rather lucky not to have as many as the other teams," sports director Lars Michaelsen said. "However, the one puncture we really didn’t want came with 6 kilometers to go and we had a rough time getting Nico up to the back of the peloton. We just made it up to the peloton but there was a small gap in the field apparently causing all the GC riders to lose 11 seconds."

However, Rafal Majka was among the fastest riders and he thereby gained 11 seconds on the rest of the GC favorites. Michael Matthews (Orica GreenEdge) still leads overall.