Cavendish loses Tour of California lead in San Jose

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After two straight wins and two days in the Tour of California leader's jersey, Mark Cavendish conceded the yellow jersey to stage 3 winner Toms Skujinš (Hincapie Racing Team) in San Jose, rolling across the line in the gruppetto over 21 minutes later. Julian Alaphilippe continued Etixx-Quick Step's run of podium finishers with third place on the stage to move into the best young rider’s white jersey.

Cavendish retains his lead in the points classification and will turn his attention to the 173.1km stage 4 to Avila Beach according to sport director Brian Holm with the day expected to finish in a bunch sprint.

"Cavendish hung on as long as he could and he had teammates there with him as the race leader. Now he has the green jersey and tomorrow looks like a sprint stage. I think we will wait and see however, as the day after can also be a sprint," Holm said.

"We will wait and see what we can do tomorrow, if we will work like we did the first two days or if maybe someone will support us. We saw what happened today with teams working all day only to miss the catch. We got two stage wins in the first two days, so the pressure is off a bit. We'll think first before we start riding on the front tomorrow, and we'll keep doing our best for good results in the next days with high morale."