THE temperature was hot and so too were the legs of Elia Viviani as he out-sprinted Mark Renshaw and the rest of the fast men on Thursday’s third stage of the Tour Down Under.
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On a day which saw the temperature in the South Australian event hit 43 degrees, a burst of speed from the Italian in the final 200 metres saw him get the nod.
He crossed the finish in a time of three hours, four minutes and 40 seconds, Bathurst professional Renshaw given the same time as he placed 39th.
It was an exciting finish to the stage from Glenelg to Victor Harbor, which had been shortened by 26 kilometres to 120.5km due to the extreme heat.
Renshaw was the first member of his Dimension Data team to reach the finish, but the highlight for the outfit was once again provided by Nicholas Dlamini.
For the third day in a row, Dlamini got himself in a breakaway as he looked to extend his lead in the battle for the king of the mountains classification.
He and rival Scott Bowden made an early move and opened up a lead of over five minutes on the peloton, setting up a two-man fight for the Penny's Hill climb.
Bowden attacked first, but Dlamini flew past him in to claim the 16 points on offer. He now leads that classification by 18 points.
That pair then came back to the peloton as the scene was set for a sprint finish. Renshaw was never close enough to the front to challenge or add to his tally of 23 top-10 stage finishes in the tour.
Friday’s fourth stage will start an hour earlier due to the heat.
