Brixia Tour
Morris Possoni maintained his promising position at the Brixia Tour after a bunch sprint on stage three.
Chris Sutton led the team home in 14th place in the bunch sprint with a number of teams jostling for position making life difficult on a fast finishing circuit.
Manuel Belletti kept up Italy’s 100 per cent winning record in this year’s race by taking victory in the bunch kick.
The Colnago-CSF rider took his third win of the season on the first straightforward stage for the sprint fraternity, edging out compatriots Daniele Colli (Geox) and Andrea Guardini (Farnese Vini) on the line.
Belletti took advantage of a strong lead-out from his Colnago-CSF team-mates into Prevalle before launching his sprint with 300 metres to go.
The bunch sprint played into the hands of the overall contenders with Fortunato Baliani (d’Angelo & Antenucci) maintaining his one minute and 44 second lead at the top of the standings.
Spared of Thursday’s cancelled evening time trial, Possoni sits 12th overall, 2:11 back going into the decisive Passo Maniva mountaintop finish where the race looks set to blown wide open.
Good position
After the stage Sports Director Nicolas Portal was happy to get back to racing after a stop-start day on Thursday.
He said: "It was a bit more normal today which was good for everyone!
"We tried to do our best for CJ or Davide but it was difficult on the last loop in terms of setting up the sprint – the pace was very, very high on the front and it was impossible to have three or four guys in line. CJ was 14th and we’ll try to win the stage on the last day with one of them now.
"The other objective today was for Morris to conserve as much energy as possible for the queen stage tomorrow.
"He did that and says he feels good for tomorrow when we’ll all be 100% for him. We have a good spirit between the riders, it’s a good mix we’ve got here. Dario was going well and did plenty of work today and hopefully he and the others can all play a key role tomorrow."
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