Second to Mark Cavendish (Sky) in yesterday’s opening bunch sprint of the Giro, Goss was also four times second in the Tour of Turkey, and one of those defeats was so narrow it required a photo-finish to decide the winner.
After an uneven start to the season, Monday was Goss’s first win since a stage in the Tour of California last May. It is also the second Giro d’Italia victory – his first being in 2010 – of the 25-year-old’s career.
“I’m sick of finishing second,” the 2011 Milan-San Remo winner told Cyclingnews at the start of stage three today, some four and a half hours before – finally – going one better.
“For one reason or another, I’ve been close but not had any luck in the last couple of weeks. So I’m really happy. Finally, I’ve hit the bulls eye.”
Concerning the crash, Goss said, “The road was wide and I was near the front, so I didn’t know about what was happening behind me.”
“It was a fast sprint, the last two kilometres were slightly downhill, but my teammates were in the right place at the right time, I didn’t make any mistakes, and I’m really happy to be able to finish it all off for them with a victory. And it’s my first win of the season, too.”
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Goss’s victory brought him another prize, too, the red points jersey. The Australian is 15 points ahead of Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Barracuda) and 17 up on Mark Cavendish (Team Sky).
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
