Fernando Gaviria claimed a hollow victory on the Giro d’Italia after his former team mate, Italian champion Elia Viviani, was disqualified from the third stage on Monday.
“The Jury watched the video footage of the sprint and has decided to relegate Elia Viviani. The winner is Fernando Gaviria,” organisers said.
Viviani appeared to deviate from his line of sprinting to block out Matteo Moschetti, but Gaviria said the Italian deserved to win.
“Elia is always fair, it is hard to celebrate,” the Colombian told reporters. “When he moved to the left, he did it without bad intention. To me he is the clear winner of today’s stage. I feel bad for him.”
Gaviria left his arms behind his back on the podium, refusing to celebrate.
Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) was second and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) third.
Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) retained the overall leader’s pink jersey at the end of a 220-km ride from Vinci that ended in chaotic fashion.
Crosswinds and a sharp left-hand turn in the finale made the peloton nervous and a crash with 5.5km left split the bunch in two, with British hope Tao Geoghegan Hart losing 1:28 after the Team Ineos youngster was caught on the wrong end.
The 24-year-old, on his Giro debut, had been named as one of two Team Ineos leaders with 21-year-old Pavel Sivakov in the absence of Egan Bernal, who is out of the race after sustaining a broken collarbone in training.
Geoghan Hart, who was seventh overall after a good opening time trial, dropped to 57th, 2:03 behind Roglic.
The Slovenian was always well positioned in the bunch, being perfectly sheltered by his Jumbo-Visma team mates.
“With only one rider in the breakaway, it made it a very long stage. It enabled me to enjoy the Maglia Rosa (jersey) a bit more,” he told reporters.
“I wasn’t really scared of the crosswinds at the end because we are a team from Holland so we know how to deal with the wind.”
Richard Carapaz (Movistar), fourth in last year’s Giro, lost 46 seconds after suffering a late mechanical problem.
Roglic leads Simon Yates by 19 seconds and twice Giro d’Italia champion Vincenzo Nibali by 23 going into Tuesday’s fourth stage, a 235-km ride from Orbetello to Frascati.
Giro d’Italia 2019 – stage 3 results (Vinci – Orbetello):
| 1 | Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) | 5:23:19 |
| 2 | Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) | ,, |
| 3 | Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) | ,, |
| 4 | Matteo Moschetti (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 5 | Giacomo Nizzolo (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 6 | Jakub Mareczko (CCC) | ,, |
| 7 | Davide Cimolai (Israel Cycling Academy) | ,, |
| 8 | Manuel Belletti (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) | ,, |
| 9 | Christian Knees (Team Ineos) | ,, |
| 10 | Sacha Modolo (EF Education First) | ,, |
| 11 | Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 12 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | ,, |
| 13 | Giovanni Lonardi (Nippo-Vini Fantini-Faizane) | ,, |
| 14 | Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) | ,, |
| 15 | Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
| 16 | José Rojas (Movistar) | ,, |
| 17 | Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 18 | Andrey Zeits (Astana) | ,, |
| 19 | Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe) | ,, |
| 20 | Mikel Landa (Movistar) | ,, |
Giro d’Italia 2019 – general classification after stage 3:
| 1 | Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) | 10:21:01 |
| 2 | Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | +19” |
| 3 | Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain – Merida) | +23” |
| 4 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | +28” |
| 5 | Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 6 | Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe) | +33” |
| 7 | Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) | +39” |
| 8 | Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida) | +40” |
| 9 | Pello Bilbao (Astana) | +42” |
| 10 | Victor de la Parte (CCC) | +45” |
| 11 | Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +46” |
| 12 | Hugh Carthy (EF Education First) | +47” |
| 13 | Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) | +50” |
| 14 | Davide Formolo (Bora-hansgrohe) | ,, |
| 15 | Daniel Navarro (Katusha-Alpecin) | +58” |
| 16 | Luke Durbridge (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 17 | Dario Cataldo (Astana) | +59” |
| 18 | Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) | +01’00” |
| 19 | Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos) | +01’01” |
| 20 | Ion Izagirre (Astana) | ,, |
