Mads Pedersen seals second sprint victory of Giro d’Italia to move back into race lead

The Dane proved unstoppable once again as he took a second sprint victory of the race to reclaim the overall lead

Pedersen proved the strongest of the sprinters on stage three (AP)

Mads Pedersen outsprinted Corbin Strong to win stage three of the Giro d'Italia on Sunday and double up on sprint victories after he claimed the opening stage of the race on Friday.

The Dane's second win of this year’s race also saw him take back the overall leader's jersey from Primoz Roglic courtesy of the 10 bonus seconds on offer for the winner, having started the day one second behind the Slovenian.

The Lidl-Trek rider took to the front in the sprint finish and held off New Zealander Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) by half a wheel, with Venezuela's Orluis Aular (Movistar) finishing third, as he did in stage one.

“Wow, to have two stage victories already and now be back in the pink, that's exactly what we wanted today,” Pedersen said.

The stage, a hilly 160-km ride starting and finishing in Vlore and the last of three stages in Albania, was dominated by an early breakaway which included Saturday's time-trial winner, Briton Joshua Tarling (INEOS Grenadiers).

Having opened up a gap of over three minutes on the peloton, the six-man group started to splinter as the bunch began to eat into their lead, with the riders all back together for the final 16 kilometres to set up the sprint finish.

Bahrain Victorious controlled the front of the group in the final kilometres, looking to set Antonio Tiberi up for the win, but in the closing stages, Pedersen's colleagues Mathias Vacek and Giulio Ciccone had the Dane perfectly positioned, as they did on Friday’s opener.

Pedersen attacked early with Strong following but nobody was going to deny the new race leader another victory, and after relinquishing the overall lead to Roglic on Saturday, he will now wear the pink jersey when the race reaches Italy.

The Dane has the chance to win in pink for the first time with Tuesday’s stage four, a flat 189-km ride from Alberobello to Lecce.

“This was the plan from this morning to put a good pace on the long climb to control it for ourselves and give me a breather,” Pedersen said.

“Then from the climb on it was controlling as far as we could and it was exactly as we wanted and then Ciccone and Vacek there doing an amazing lead out.”

Additional reporting by Reuters