Stage 3

The road

At the start

Sky have the top five

The team time trial has done something absurd to the classification: Salvatore Puccio leads the Giro d'Italia and the next four riders on it are all his teammates, Wiggins, Henao, Cataldo and Urán, on the same time. Movistar are nine seconds back. Today is two hundred and twenty-three kilometres down the Amalfi coast, with the San Mauro Cilento and the Sella di Catona late on.

How it was won

1. 173 km to go

   The Cilento hills take the sprinters

   Eight kilometres of climbing that nobody had marked as dangerous, and the fast men come apart on it: Cavendish, Bouhanni, Chicchi and Gavazzi all slide out of the back. Up front De Backer is dropped too, and the break is down to six.

2. 224 km to go

   Hesjedal lights the Sella di Catona

   Nobody expects anything of this climb. Then Garmin-Sharp mass on the front and Ryder Hesjedal goes alone, and for a few seconds the Giro looks like exploding on its third day. Astana organise the chase and Hesjedal sits up and waits for them — but Salvatore Puccio is nowhere in sight.

3. 318 km to go

   Twenty riders left on the descent

   Agnoli attacks over the summit and Hesjedal goes with him, and the plunge to the coast does the rest. It is fast, it is technical, it puts several riders on the ground, and by the bottom there are twenty men at the front of the Giro d'Italia.

4. 45 km to go

   Paolini goes with five to go

   The favourites are watching each other on the twisting run to the sea, and a thirty-six-year-old riding his first Giro d'Italia is watching the road instead. Luca Paolini is the best descender in the group, and he takes the gap nobody offers him.

5. 5At the line

   Marina di Ascea, and pink

   Sixteen seconds, and time enough to celebrate. Evans and Hesjedal collect the places and the bonuses behind him; Puccio comes in seven minutes down; and Paolini rides into the maglia rosa on the strength of a twenty-second bonus.

The result