Przemyslaw Niemiec proved that he is fully ready to improve on last year's sixth place at the Giro d'Italia when he finished third in the key warm-up event, Giro del Trentino. As he had done on stage 2, he rode today's long climb wisely, keeping his own tempo, to ultimately finish best of the race favourites and move onto the final podium.

It was certainly a hard blow for Lampre-Merida to lose Chris Horner for the Giro d'Italia but the replacement at the helm of the Italian team is certainly not a bad one. Today Przemyslaw Niemiec showed that he deserves to be a leader of his team in the Italian grand tour when he finished third in the Giro del Trentino.

After taking an excellent second as the best of the race favourites in the first mountain stage, Niemiec had struggled in yesterday's short, explosive finish and lost his spot in the top 3. Today's queen stage finished on a long climb that suited him much better and again he rode wisely by setting his own steady pace to again being the best of the favourites, crossing the line in 4th just ahead of race winner Cadel Evans.

The result was enough to move him into third overall and move him higher up the list of favourites for the Giro after finishing sixth in last year's race.

"When I take a look at the results of today's stage and the GC, I realize that I got a really good result, he said. "The level was very high, all climbers were in great shape in this stage that ended with the long climb of Monte Bondone.

"The final climb was very difficult and it was easy to do things wrong. I kept my calm when they started attacking. 

"As I have done throught this Giro del Trentino, I set my own pace that allowed me to get to the final part with Evans. I felt good and focused on the the GC rivals. When I could see the finish line, I tried to do my best.

"The result repays the effort of my team at the Giro del Trentino and gives me certainty about the quality of the work that I have done in this first part of the season. And then it is nice to get a fine result.

"This race has been a very interesting preparation for me for the upcoming important events: Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Giro d'Italia.

"In these four days of the race I had a good sensation. I found it hard, but I had a positive response. Now I'm going to Liege and then I'll take a small break before the Giro where I will try to do my best."

"We reached our target," sports director Orlando Maini said. Much of the credit goes to Niemiec who was really beautiful on the final climb, but I would also like to point out the good performances from his teammates: Anacona, Favilli and Serpa who tried to follow all the attacks, allowing Niemiec to ride quietly until Monte Bondone."