Orica-GreenEDGE’s phenomenal Giro d’Italia continued apace thanks to Pieter Weening’s stage victory and everything the Aussie team does continues to work out for them.

Team time trial success provided the fairytale story of Svein Tuft claiming the maglia rosa on his birthday and, more significantly, then gave Michael Matthews a week at the top of the general classification. Matthews followed that up with stage victory of his own on stage six.

And after finally surrendering the pink jersey on stage eight, the Aussie team marched straight back on to the podium thanks to Weening’s win – arguably the finest of their three successes so far. Team time trial victory underlined their strength in the discipline, but with a team packed full of time trial specialists anything less would have been considered a disappointment.

Matthews’ win showed great strength on the final climb, but was overshadowed by the huge crash which marred the stage and split the bunch. For Weening, however, they were no prevailing circumstances – just a great ride in the break and great timing and strength to attack the leaders, with Davide Malacarne, and stay clear.