Tim Merlier sprints to stage 3 win at Giro d'Italia despite late attack from Tadej Pogacar and Geraint Thomas

In the first bunch sprint of the 2024 Giro d'Italia, Tim Merlier took the stage win for Soudal - Quick-Step but that does not tell even half the story on another epic and exciting day.

With no riders attacking at the flag drop, the peloton settled in for a somewhat sedate opening to stage 3 with no breakaway. After around 50km however, in preparation for a cat 4 climb, Lilian Calmejane attacked in search in King of the Mountains points and in the process, ignited some life and excitement into the race.

After taking the maximum points at the King of the Mountains climb however, Calmejane immediately dropped back to the peloton and although Davide Ballerini, who'd followed the Frenchman's attack initially carried on solo for a few kilometres, soon after the Astana Qazaqstan Team rider also decided to sit up and wait.

The next real point of interest came with 87km to go at the intermediate sprint. Perhaps in a foreshadowing of the stage finale, Jonathan Milan took maximum points, boosting his hopes of retaining the Maglia Ciclamino in the process. After the intermediate sprint however, the current Maglia Ciclamino, Filippo Fiorelli went on the attack. Although the Italian wasn't able to break free solo, he did draw a group of over 20 riders clear with him.

Many of the sprint hopes were in the group including Biniam Girmay, Kaden Groves, David Dekker, Danny van Poppel, Laurence Pithie, Tim Merlier, Jonathan Milan, Christophe Laporte, Olav Kooij and Alberto Dainese among others. With the teams that had missed out taking their time to react in the peloton, the lead groups advantage quickly grew towards a minute and a half.

With their lead still 1:17 at the second intermediate sprint, Milan again took maximum points ahead of Merlier and Groves. Best placed in the group by the way, was Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL's Kevin Vermaeke at 7:11, so no real GC threat that needed chasing down.

As the peloton, led by Bahrain - Victorious and Movistar Team began to really step up the chase, splits began to form in the peloton with Cian Uijtdebroeks and Juan Pedro Lopez caught behind. From one of the easier days on the bike, things had completely flipped mid-stage to an absolute battle for the riders. Finally though, with just over 43km to go, everything came back together. The question now being, how much effort had the sprinters who attacked used up in that group?

After some kilometres of relative calm in the immediate aftermath of the catch, things warmed up again ahead of the last intermediate sprint, with bonus seconds on offer. With the lure of the bonus seconds drawing out the GC men, Ben Swift took the maximum three seconds, Tadej Pogacar two and Geraint Thomas the remaining one.

Heading into the final 15km, the rain began to fall, adding another element to what was already a technical and potentially dangerous finale. With INEOS Grenadiers at the front, keeping Geraint Thomas safe, the pace was incredibly high. When Mikkel Honore launched an attack with just over 3km to go, Tadej Pogacar and Thomas were right on the back wheel causing chaos for the sprint trains behind.

As Thomas and Pogacar began to pull, Honore was soon put in trouble and into the final kilometre, the two Maglia Rosa contenders had a clear gap at the front of the race. As the sprint trains launched in the final few hundred metres, Thomas and Pogacar were finally caught, and in a tight sprint finale it was Tim Merlier who edged Jonathan Milan and Biniam Girmay.