Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile, Cat 2.9.1

Italy, June 30-July 11, 1999

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Stage 3, Fano - Cittą di Castello, 113 kms:

AVS: 37.573 km/h

 1. Zinaida Stahurkaya (Blr) Acca Due O Lorena	     3.00.27
 2. Sonia Rocca (Ita) Team Alfa Lum
 3. Zita Urbonaite (Ltu) Acca Due O Lorena Camice
 4. Luisiana Pegoraro (Ita) Edilsavino
 5. Priska Doppmann (Swi) Gas Sport Team
 6. Gabriella Pregnolato (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena	0.05
 7. Antonella Bellutti (Ita) Mista Selene Rama		0.46
 8. Petra Rossner (Ger) German National Team 		0.50
 9. Oksana Saprykina (Ukr) Primavera Oliviero Sport	0.50
10. Lenka Ilavska (Svk) Slovak Cycling Team		0.50

GC after Stage 3 

 1. Zita Urbonaite (Ltu) Acca Due O Lorena Camice    8.50.27
 2. Zinaida Stahurkaya (Blr) Acca Due O Lorena Camice
 3. Priska Doppmann (Swi) Gas Sport Team
 4. Luisiana Pegoraro (Ita) Edilsavino
 5. Gabriella Pregnolato (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena	0.16
 6. Marion Clignet (Fra) Mista H2O Lorena Svizzera 	0.50
 7. Nada Cristofoli (Ita) Edilsavino			0.50
 8. Sara Felloni (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena Camice		0.50
 9. Oksana Saprykina (Ukr) Primavera Oliviero Sport	0.50
10. Gitana Groudyte (Ltu) Team Aliverti CDE		0.50

Race Report:

The Acca Due O Lorena team comprised of riders from Eastern Europe dominated Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia femminile raced over 113 kms from Fano to Cittą di Castello. Bielorussian Zinaida Stahurskaya won the sprint ahead of five other riders who went away on the downhill section that led to the finish following the climb of Bocca Serriola.

The 28 years old rider from Minsk won ahead of Italian Sonia Rocca and team-mate Zita Urbonaite who remained first overall and put his second pink jersey on. She said afterwards: "I feel really happy, this is the first time I have won a stage in the Giro d'Italia. The victory today crowned the first part of my season as I already won a lot in 1999. The win is my 8th for the season and I hope this is just the beginning! I showed today that I am not just a sprinter but that I am also able to follow the best when the road is climbing."

The odds-on favourites of the Giro, Fabiana Luperini and Edita Pucinskaite, remained in the wheels and arrived 50 seconds after the stage-winner. It is clear that both the riders are waiting for the Monte Serra hill (next Sunday) in order to attack and showed what their possibilities are.

Karen Kurreck Reports:

Today's stage was 113 km and featured 1 cat 2 climb at 90km. The climb was about 30km long, but most of it was fairly gradual. Italians not only have the rule that one must eat 3 exactly hours before a race, but also that one must eat pasta before a race. If the race is in the morning, that means pasta for breakfast. They told the staff at the hotel they wanted pasta for breakfast the night before and the hotel thought that was very strange. We did eat pasta at 8:30 am however.

Our team is now down to only 4 riders. We picked up Australian rider Annabel Vowels for this race and she missed the time cut by 1 minute yesterday. It was too bad because she waited quite a bit for our sprinter Greta who never came because she pulled herself out earlier. Altogether 26 riders either missed the time cut yesterday or were far enough back that they pulled themselves. Remember, these are the "flat" stages.

True to form, the stage started about 10 min early. I have learned from experience over the last 2 1/2 months that when my team says we are leaving at 9:30, that really means everyone starts going down to the cars at 9:00 and we drive off around 9:15. Same with the races. If the bible says a race starts at 11:30, you better be in the start area ready to go at least by 11:15. It kind of works becasue Italians never really warmup for races, they just hang out in the start area and find a bar for a cup of espresso if they can.

Anyway, we started out at a pretty mellow pace. About 15km into the race, our team director started playing music on our race radios! The slower pace made for a lot of sketchy pack riding and the inevitable first crash of the race happened. Pregnolato and a few others piled up right in front of me. I could do nothing except land on top of the pile of bikes and riders. Falling on riders is usually better than falling on cement, however. I was fine and got back up and back to the pack pretty fast. Pregnolato was on the bottom of the pile and took awhile to get going. The whole peleton slowed down though until she came back up. One of the advantages of being a popular and high-profile rider!

There were a few attacks on the climb, but everything was reeled in quickly and most of it was just tempo and gradual enough to be able to sit in on. Only the last 2-3km got hard and we had a large group of about 60 at the top. On the descent, gaps opened up as usual and a break of 6 riders got away: Pregnalato, Zita Urbonite and Zina Staguskaia from Dream team, Priska Doppmann from GAS, Sonia Rocca from Alpha Lum and my teammate Louisiana Pegoraro. With the rest of the Dream team blocking and most of the strong teams represented, the group got out of sight pretty fast. The finish was only about 5km after the descent. I think a lot of people didn't know a break was off including Antonella Belluti (Selena Rama). She attacked with about 800m to go and held off the field and crossed the line with her arms in the air - in 7th! Petra took the sprint for 8th.

In the break, Louisiana said the 3 Dream Team riders were arguing all the way about who should win. Pregnolato attacked a few times but didn't get away. When it came to a sprint, she sat up with 200m to go. Staguskaia won the stage. Sonia Rocca was 2nd and Zita Urbonite was 3rd. Louisiana was 4th. Zita keeps the Maglia Rosa she got yesterday. The top 4 riders are still tied on time.