Giro 2025 starts again in Puglia: Mads Pedersen in pink, Primoz Roglic renews challenge

After the Grand Departure in Albania and a Monday rest to allow the Carovana Rosa to move to Italy, the Giro 2025 starts again from Puglia, more precisely from Alberobello, for a stage that will lead from Valle d’Itria to Salento, arriving in Lecce at the end of a 189-kilometer route. The pink jersey is on the shoulders of Mads Pedersen, who took it off Primoz Roglic on Sunday at the finish in Vlora.

The Slovenian of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe is 9″ off the top of the general classification: “Everything went as I wanted – he told ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ -. The most important thing was to finish the three stages in Albania without any problems, and we succeeded. For me it was a very good start. The pink jersey? These are not my days, there are Pedersen and other guys who care about wearing it at this stage”.

“In the third stage, as it should be, we put our team to pull – explained again the 35-year-old Trbovlje-born veteran -. I must say that I enjoyed these three stages”. Roglic is looking for his second victory at the Giro d’Italia, after the one in 2023. He has also won the Vuelta in his career, on four occasions (2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024).

The general classification of the Giro d’Italia sees, after three stages, Mads Pedersen in pink with a total time of 7h42’10”: behind him are Roglic at 9″, Matias Vacek (Pedersen’s teammate at Lidl-Trek) at 14″ and a trio of UAE Team Emirates riders, Brandon McNulty, Juan Ayuso and Isaac Del Toro, spaced out by 21″, 25″ and 26″ respectively. The first of the Italians is Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious, eighth at 34″ from Pedersen.