Third time's the charm. After attacking on the final climb of stage 1 and finishing in the top 10 in the Budapest time trial, Leonard Kemna (Bora-Hansgrohe) made a brilliantly calculated climb to the top of Mount Etna at the Giro d'Italia on Tuesday to win.

After a counter attack from the remnants of a breakaway group 7km from the line, Chemna caught up with stage leader Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) at the top of the slope and easily outpaced him in the sprint.

Sustained uphill efforts and mountain stage victories are something of a speciality for Kemna, who won stage 16 of the 2020 Tour de France ahead of Richard Carapace on a hard day of riding across the Alps. In the 2022 Vuelta a Andalucía, he attacked alone on the final, demanding climb to win the race's most difficult summit finish.

But fighting for victory on the 22km-long climb up Mount Etna was a whole different kettle of fish, and the 25-year-old recognized that it was more touch-and-go as to when he should make his move.

"I stayed in the main part of the breakaway group for as long as I could because it was windy and I didn't have the confidence to stay there by myself," Kemna said. [but] I realized that the gap to Lopez was getting too big and that if I didn't make my move to catch him, I would lose my chance. So I'm very happy it worked out"

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Kemna said his victory in the Tour de l'Alps gave him more confidence going into the Giro d'Italia.

"I got better day by day in the Alps, and stage 5 (in which I finished third) was much better than when I won (stage 3). I was at a higher level than I expected myself to be."

Like Tom Dumoulin, athletes before him, and a growing number of athletes in other sports, in 2021 Chemna needed time to recover mentally and physically from the constant demands and expectations of the sport he had fought in since his junior years. already one in 2018. Having been away from the sport once already in 2018, Kemna said at the Tour de l'Alps.

When asked directly at a press conference why he took time off, Kemna said, "I wasn't feeling well, I wasn't having fun. But now I'm back and happy to be racing again."

Kemna will be part of the powerful Bora-Hansgrohe team for this year's Giro d'Italia, with Emmanuel Buchmann, Jai Hindley, and Wilco Kelderman in the front group of contenders for the GC on Tuesday.

Kemna said that the stage win had relieved a lot of pressure on his teammates, but he dismissed the possibility of becoming the German team's fourth GC man in the Giro, despite being only 39 seconds behind Lopez.

"This Giro isn't about the overall for me, I just want to add stages," Lopez said. I just want to support the team leader as much as possible."

"I have two more chances, so I'll probably be back for a while. But there may be another opportunity down the road."