photo credits @ ToTA
Lennard Kämna clinched the victory in stage 3 of the Tour of the Alps atop the Passo San Valentino today, crossing the finish ahead of his teammate Aleksandr Vlasov to make it a 1-2 win for the German squad.
Meanwhile, Ineos-Grenadiers’ Tao Geoghegan Hart remained the overall race leader, while Hugh Carthy (EF Education Easypost) climbed to second place at 22 seconds back, followed by Bahrain-Victorious’ Jack Haig in third, a further 6 seconds behind.
Race Highlights
Early action in the stage was dominated by a breakaway group featuring Jasha Sütterlin (Bahrain-Victorious), Juri Hollmann (Team Movistar), Andrea Vendrame (AG2R-Citroen), Lorenzo Milesi (Team DSM), Joe Dombrowski (Astana), Riccardo Lucca (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizane), Txomin Juaristi (), Giovanni Carboni (Team Kern Pharma), Mattia Bais (Eolo-Kometa), Lukas Pöstlberger and Alexander Hajek (Team Jayco-Alula), and Liam Johnston (Trinity Racing).
On the descent from Lago di Cei, Sütterlin went on the attack, subsequently building up a slight advantage. But, the German rider was later reeled back in by his fellow escapees when they reached the flat terrain of the valley.
With 26 kilometers to go, the breakaway group was still holding onto a sizable 4:28 advantage over the peloton.
When the breakaway approached the final Brentonico San Valentino climb, the duo of Vendrame and Pöstlberger decided to jettison the group with a bold attack, quickly opening up a slim gap of 11 seconds, while the peloton had reduced the breakaway group’s lead to 3:15.
Vendrame later went solo, a move that was chased down in earnest by Dombrowski and Juaristi.
With 10 kilometers remaining, Dombrowski had replaced Vendrame at the front, while a Bora-Hansgrohe led peloton had reduced the breakaway group’s lead to just two minutes.
With 7 kilometers remaining, Dombrowski was the only rider still out front, clinging to a 55 second margin.
Meanwhile, Kämna launched a solo attack from the peloton, later drawing out Alexander Cepeda (EF Education-EasyPost) with just over 3 kilometers left.
It wasn’t long before they caught Dombrowski, who couldn’t keep pace with the pair.
Back in the peloton, in an attempt to preserve his overall lead, Geoghegan Hart attacked with 1.7 kilometers to go.
But, the leaders remained outside of his grasp, with Kämna later attacking during final 500 meters after letting Cepeda do all of the hard work, snatching the victory from his rival in a seemingly unsportsmanlike fashion, while his teammate added insult to injury after sweeping past the Ecuadorian rider to seize second place.
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