THIRD TEAM TIME TRIAL CAREER WIN FOR WEGELIUS

Yet to take his first individual win as a pro. Charley Wegelius added a third team time trial victory to his palmares on Tuesday.

The Briton formed part of the Liquigas squad that romped home in first place in the stage Ib team time trial at the Coppi e Bartali race in Italy.

The team win completed a perfect day for Liquigas after they also won the opening morning stage with sprinter Francesco Chicchi. Chicchi was also first across the line for the Liquigas squad in the afternoon, with Wegelius in second place.

For Wegelius, meanwhile, Liquigas victory was the third team time trial win of his career - the first being in Coppi and Bartali back in 2002, and the second in the Giro last year.

?Chicchi?s confidence was on a high after taking a stage in Tirreno and sprinters are like strikers in football.? Wegelius told Cycling.

?They operate on confidence. Once they start winning or getting the ball in the net they?re hard to stop.?

And what is the secret to Wegelius team time trial success?

?Use small gears.? is his short answer.

Wegelius, it turns out, has also been training a lot on his time trial bike this season, ?because I?ve been wanting to get myself in good shape for time trials in the Giro [where there are four], particularly the team time trial there.

Today in any case, I rode a really good race. There were a couple of lumpy bits on the course which hurt, although to be honest even going over a bridge hurts in a team time trial.

Whatever tactics you talk about too, it ends up with the guys who are strongest going hardest and the ones who aren?t so good taking shorter turns or none at all.

In any case, for some reason, though, team time trials seem to suit me a lot.?

Liquigas 11.8km in 13min 01 sec

2 Acqua and Sapone (Ita) at 2sec

3 TInkoff (Rus) at 3sec

4 Astana (Kaz) at 8sec

5 Silence-Lotto (Bel) at 9sec

1 Francesco Chicchi (Ita) Liquigas 2-17-12

2 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas at 6sec

3 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Liquigas

4 Andrea Noe (Ita) Liquigas

5 Alessandro Vanotti (Ita) Liquigas

6 Charley Wegelius (GB) Liquigas all same time