Team Sky are simply unstoppable in this year's Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali as Peter Kennaugh continued the team's run of success by winning today's queen stage of the race. One day after the Brits had taken the two opening half-stages of the race, the Brit joined Francesco Bongiorno (Bardiani) after the final climb of the day before beating his companion in the final sprint to take the overall lead from his teammate Ben Swift.

Prior to the season, Peter Kennaugh had said that he would like to step a bit out of his domesitique role and target personal success in select races. He specifically pointed to the Settimana Internazionale Coppe e Bartali as an opportunity as the Sky team would be without its biggest stars in the Italian race.

Kennaugh delivered on his promises when he won today's queen stage of the race to continue Sky's complete dominance of the Italian race. After Ben Swift's sprint win in the opening half-stage and the team's victory in the afternoon time trial, Kennaugh added a third consecutive win to the team's list of victories.

While overall leader Swift was left behind, Kennaugh made the key selection on the day's main climb that was tackled five times in the final part of the race and he was the one to open the attacking when he gave it a go the final time up the ascent. He was passed by Francesco Bongiorno who went clear on his own but Kennaugh managed to rejoin him on the descent.

The duo worked well together to keep their chasers at bay and so the stage had to be decided in a sprint between the duo. With his track background, all odds were on Kennaugh to beat the pure climber Bongiorno and the Brit lived up to expectations by taking his first professional win.

As he was also part of the winning team in yesterday's team time trial, Kennaugh is now also the overall leader in the four-day race. He leads Bongiorno by 42 seconds and is in a comfortable position ahead of the final two stages.

Tomorrow the race continues with a completely flat stage for the sprinters where it will be up to Swift to keep the Sky ball rolling. Kennaugh faces his sternest test on Sunday in the concluding 10km time trial.

The queen stage

After the opening day had consisted of two half-stages, the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali continued with its queen stage that brought the riders over 160.2km from Sant'Angelo di Gatteo to Sogliano al Rubicone. After a short flat stretch at the beginning, the race consisted of five laps of a 22.1km circuit that included the Ville di Monti Tiffi climb before a downhill and flat run-in to the finish.

The race was off to a fast and aggressive start as the hilly terrain was suited to a breakaway. It took a long time for the day's break to be established and when the elastic finally snapped, it was a big group that had gone clear.

A big group

Davide Frattini (Unitedhealthcare), Marco Frapporti (Androni), Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (MTN), Zico Waeytens (Topsport Vlaanderen), Enrico Rossi (Christina Watches), Daniel Paulus (Vini Fantini), Alessandro Malaguti (Androni), Andrea Vaccher (Marchiol), Michael Woods (Amore e Vita), Gianluca Leonardi (Aero Zero), Matteo Busato (MG Kvis), and Emanuel Kiserlovski (Meridiana Kamen) made up the day's break but Sky were reluctant to give such a big group too much leeway. After 52km of racing, they were only 2.50 ahead and the gap had come down to 1.25 by the time they hit the finishing circuit.

Frattini, Frapporti, Van Rensburg, Waeytens, Malaguti, Vaccher, Woods, Kiserlovski, and Busato left Leonardi, Paulus and Rossi behind and managed to reopen the gap to 1.55. Kiserlovski attacked on his own and managed to open a 30-second gap but with 78km to go, he was back in the fold. At that point, the gap was still 1.55.

Bardiani apply the pressure

Woods fell off the pace as the front group managed to keep the gap rather stable and they were still 2 minutes ahead when 52km remained. However, Bardiani knew that they had to take time in today's stage with their climber Bongiorno and so they started to ride hard on the front of the peloton.

When the gap was down to 50 seconds, Swift started to struggle and he soon found himself in a group that was 3.10 back and would never see the front. The peloton slowed down a bit to allow the gap to grow back up to 1.30 as Frattini had now also fallen off the pace.

A strong front group

On the penultimate ascent, it all came back together and the hard pace whittled the peloton down to just Rafale Valls Ferri (Lampre), Damiano Caruso (Cannondale), Dario Cataldo (Sky), Sebastian Henao (Sky), Kennaugh, Bongiorno, Jarlinson Pantano (Colombia), Matteo Rabottini (Vini Fantini), Sergey Firsanov (Rusvelo), Waeytens, Diego Ulissi (Lampre), Franco Pellizotti (Androni), Diego Rosa (Androni), and Davide Mucelli (Meridiana Kamen). After the top, Antonio Santoro (Meridiana Kamen), Simone Petilli (Aero Zero), and Fabio Taborre (YellowFluo) made the junction and a little later Davide Villella (Cannondale) and Angelo Pagani (Bardiani) also made it across.

At the bottom of the final climb with 20km to go, that group was 40 seconds ahead of the next big group. Taborre attacked from the bottom but was quickly brought back.

Kennaugh makes his move

Miguel Angel Rubiano (Colombia), Mauro Finetto (YellowFluo), and Frattini were in pursuit of the front group while the peloton was now 58 seconds behind. The front group started to splinter as they headed up the final ascent.

Near the top Kennaugh launched his attack while Bongiorno took off in pursuit. He passed the Sky rider and crested the summit with a 15-second gap while the chasers were only 5 seconds further adrift.

A strong front duo

Kennaugh managed to rejoin Bongiorno and with 5km to go, they were 38 seconds ahead of Firsanov who had set off in pursuit. The first bigger group was made up of Valls Ferri, Caruso, Cataldo, Pantano, Rabottini and Mucelli.

The front duo managed to stay clear and so the stage would be decided in a sprint between the duo. Kennaugh emerged as the fastest while Rabottini beat Cataldo and Pantano in the sprint from the chase group that had caught Firsanov before the line.