Giovanni Aleotti takes stage 3 of 2024 Tour of Slovenia on relentlessly attacking day

On an exciting and relentlessly attacking day at the 2024 Tour of Slovenia, BORA - hansgrohe's Giovanni Aleotti was the one to make his attack stick, taking the win on stage 3.

Although a group of six riders initially went clear of the peloton early on, just the duo of Mattéo Vercher from TotalEnergies and Negasi Haylu Abreha of the Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team remained up ahead on the second categorised climb of the day. Sadly for them however, the peloton weren't being giving at all and with over 50km still to go, the break was ended. 

On the rolling terrain, there were a number of attacks in the following kilometres, with a big group of 17 riders actually getting themselves a gap off the front of the bunch. Among that attack were notable names such as Alessandro Covi, Archie Ryan, Martin Marcellusi, Andrew August and Alessandro De Marchi among others. Although the peloton did eventually pull things back together, three riders, Marcellusi, Emil Herzog and Mathieu Burgedeau all launched counter attacks again.

With around 14km to go however, an acceleration by Archie Ryan on the front of the GC group brought back Marcellusi. In fact, Ryan's pace was so fierce, only around five or six riders could follow. When the Irishman pulled over, his teammate, Ben Healy attacked, drawing Jhonatan Narvaez and Filippo Zana with him up the road.

Before the top of the final categorised climb of the day, things were brought back together slightly at the head of the race, with Healy, Narvaez and Zana being reeled back in. With VF Group - Bardiani CSF - Faizanè having the numbers advantage, Domenico Pozzovivo and Giulio Pellizzari were attempting repeated one-two attacks to break free. 

It was BORA - hansgrohe's Giovanni Aleotti who managed to snap the elastic on the descent towards the finish line, entering the final 2 kilometres around 20 seconds clear of the chase group. Despite the Italian beginning to tie up slightly, there was no catching Aleotti who took the stage win ahead of Narvaez.