Mads Pedersen regains Maglia Rosa with powerful sprint win on stage 3 of 2025 Giro d'Italia

Mads Pedersen has sprinted back into the Maglia Rosa thanks to a powerful victory from a reduced bunch on stage 3 of the 2025 Giro d'Italia in Vlorë.

After his time trial stage win yesterday, Joshua Tarling was again front and centre in the early part of stage 3. The Welshman attacked early and formed the early breakaway of the day alongside Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team), Lorenzo Germani (Groupama - FDJ), Mark Donovan (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team), Chris Hamilton (Team Picnic PostNL) and Alessandro Tonelli (Team Polti VisitMalta).

Lidl-Trek, working for Mads Pedersen were controlling things tightly at the front of the peloton though, keeping the gap between break and bunch steady at around three minutes.

On the little kickers ahead of the big climb of the day, so hard was the pace that notable sprinters such as Kaden Groves, Sam Bennett and others were already sinking out the back of the peloton.

With just over 50km to go, Dries De Bondt became the first of the breakaway caught by the peloton. At 46km to go, Wout van Aert himself was dropped by the peloton, just moments after Lorenzo Fortunato had reignited the attacking at the front of the bunch on the Qafa e Llogarasë, alongside Pello Bilbao.

As the counter attack quickly worked its way through the breakaway, Chris Hamilton of the day's early attackers but he too had been dropped by Fortunato and Bilbao by the top of the climb, as the duo extended their advantage over the peloton to nearly a minute. Notably, Fortunato took maximum points at the summit, moving into the lead of the KoM classification as a result.

With 19km to go, Bilbao and Fortunato were reeled back in, and those sprinters that had managed to keep in contact with the peloton could begin to dream of a potential Grand Tour stage win.

With no riders even attempting attacks before the finale, a sprint was indeed the decider of the day. Notably, all the GC contenders got safely through the 3km banner. Of the remaining fast men, all were fighting for position on the back wheel of Mads Pedersen. In the fight for the win, Pedersen was the first to open thing up, and despite a massive effort from Corbin Strong behind, the Dane held on to win the stage and regain the Maglia Rosa.